


Staring At The Sun

by roggietaylor



Category: Bohemian Rhapsody (Movie 2018), Queen (Band)
Genre: 70s Queen, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Early Queen (Band), Internalized Transphobia, M/M, Trans Male Character, like 1972 kind of 'early', trans!roger, unsafe binding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-21
Updated: 2020-08-03
Packaged: 2021-03-01 03:47:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 55,249
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23238709
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/roggietaylor/pseuds/roggietaylor
Summary: Roger is trans, and hasn't told a soul. He may have feelings for Brian but it's not worth thinking about, not when he can't tell anyone, much less Brian, the truth about himself.
Relationships: Brian May/Roger Taylor
Comments: 114
Kudos: 211





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hey so! I said I wanted to do a trans fic and no one seemed to like that idea so what I did was I wrote two :) I have a cis froger fic up that I'll be updating at the same time as this one so if you don't like this one I'm posting something else that you may like instead. I hope anyone who reads this enjoys it and if you do please comment <33

Roger kept his door locked. He couldn’t remember the excuse he gave Freddie when he installed it, but Freddie bought it. He liked to barge into rooms, it was just how he was. He had nothing to hide, his door remained open all day, it took him awhile to understand that Roger needed privacy in a way that he didn’t. But, being Freddie, he gave him that privacy and didn’t pry as to why it was so important.

The lock was threaded, a little barrel bolt he got at the hardware store a few days after moving in. He thought, when he first moved in with Freddie, that he could stand to have privacy in the bathroom only and have Freddie wandering into his room at all other hours of the day, thought maybe shutting the door would signal to him that he needed to be left alone for a bit. But after a few close calls he decided he couldn’t live so high strung.

Every morning, as he always did, he checked the lock to be sure, and started the arduous process of getting dressed. Thanks to his mother, he had a relatively flat chest, flat enough that he felt fine in a billowy top, not flat enough that he felt fine being seen in one. He’d heard it caused some damage, to flatten his chest, to bind it up as tightly as he did, to use the methods he did, but it was worth it to him if no one noticed he’d done it. He didn’t care about his lungs, his ribs, not one bit if it meant everyone still called him ‘Roger’.

He fiddled with his hair in the little mirror propped up on top of his dresser. He looked like himself.

“Rog, I made breakfast,” called Freddie, “sort of…”

Roger threw on clothes. He liked tight fitting things, things that showed off his carefully constructed form. His mother once said he was lying to people with his flattened chest, his balled up socks stuffed down his trousers. He knew better. It wasn’t a lie, no more than hair dye or makeup was a lie. The only difference with him was no one knew he was faking these features. No one had to in his opinion.

He slide the lock open, it made a horrible sound. The metal was cheap and tinny when it was moved, but Freddie always knew when he wanted to be left alone.

“Good morning,” called Freddie from the kitchen.

“Morning,” replied Roger, strolling in. “What’ve we made?”

“We’ve made,” he drummed his hands on the table dramatically, “french toast.”

“Oh,” said Roger. “Is it good?”

“I haven’t been brave enough to try it yet but mum gave me that syrup she didn’t like so I figured we ought to use it,” said Freddie. “And I’ve got no idea how to make a pancake.”

“But you can make french toast?” said Roger, sitting down in front of his syrup soaked toast.

“Of course you just dip the bread in milk and fry it up,” said Freddie.

“That doesn’t sound right,” said Roger, prodding the toast with a fork.

“The syrup will cover it,” said Freddie.

The syrup didn’t cover it. Roger didn’t know what ingredient Freddie missed or what step he forgot to take but he knew the taste of burnt milk wasn’t what he’d aimed for. But he’d had worse, and so had Freddie, so they ate it without complaint and split the morning newspaper up how they always had.

“The gig tonight ought to be fun,” said Freddie, absently.

“Mm,” replied Roger. He forgot about that gig. He loved drumming, always had and he knew he always would, but drumming the way he had to drum. Bound tight, sometimes twice over just to be sure, it was restricting, to his movement and his lungs and after every show he wanted nothing more than to peel off all his clothes and sit under the hot spray of a shower for as long as the water would run. “Should be fun.”

~~~

Roger hoisted his drums out of the back of his van with Brian’s help. Brian had been good enough to bring a dolly out for him to roll his drums in after Roger had thrown a fit about getting mud on them the last show. He felt a tinge of guilt as he and Brian rested his weighty bass drum on the dolly but at least he wouldn’t have to polish them up later.

“Can it stay like this?” said Brian, referring to the upturned drum.

Roger smirked. “Yeah, it can stay like this.”

“So,” Brian gestured to Roger, “I see you won the war.”

“What?” said Roger, cocking his head before it clicked, “oh the clothes—yeah, I just couldn’t do all that.”

“I don’t blame you,” Brian lifted the brake off the dolly and started pushing for Roger. “You’ve got to be comfortable when you’re performing, that thing he wanted to put you in would’ve driven you insane.”

“Suppose it would’ve,” said Roger. That thing Freddie wanted him in was sheer, spandex-esque material. Everyone would see every ripple and crease from the way he bound up his chest. And if they didn’t see it through the fabric, they’d see it through the deep cut down the center Freddie insisted upon. Roger’s excuse was something about it clinging to his sweaty skin, and when Freddie suggested going shirtless he said he needed something to absorb the sweat. In the end John got Freddie to drop it saying he didn’t want to be the odd man out since he would also not be caught dead in one of Freddie’s outfits.

Brian helped him lift the drum onto the stage, helped him position it and stood over him while Roger screwed the pedal into place.

“Got it?” said Brian.

“Yeah,” groaned Roger, bent out of shape.

“I’ll—I’ll go get the toms,” said Brian. Before Roger could object or thank him he was out the door with the dolly.

“Hm,” said Freddie, strutting down the stage to meet Roger at his snare while he raised and lowered it to perfection.

“What ‘hm’?” said Roger, his eyes on his drum.

“You think he’s…” said Freddie. Roger looked up at him. “Is it just me or has he been…attentive to you lately?”

Roger shrugged. “Haven’t noticed.”

“Maybe I’m a little off but is he…” Freddie whispered, and leaned over Roger’s drum, his hands gripping the hoop of his snare to get in closer, “do you think he’s… _you know_ …”

Roger stared at him, eyes slitted, trying to decipher what Freddie meant. They widened again with realisation. “Oh—oh god, no. It’s _Brian_.”

“You think?” said Freddie, still unconvinced.

“He’s practically married to that girl Chrissie, no, of course he isn’t.”

“Hm,” said Freddie. “I guess not. Must just be seeing things.”

“Wh…what things?” said Roger.

“Darling don’t look so scared,” laughed Freddie. “I’m sure it’s all in my head, you don’t have to worry about some awkward confession or anything. I just look too hard, that’s all.”

“Here we are,” said Brian, dragging the dolly through the door again. Roger avoided his eyes as they unloaded the kit on to the stage. “Is this right?” said Brian, holding Roger’s drum up for him above his bass.

“Yes, hold it just like that,” said Roger as he hurriedly tightened the clamp that held the drum in place before Brian lost the angle he needed. They did his second rack tom together, Brian set up his crash and ride cymbals while Roger adjusted his floor tom and his hi hat. It wasn’t so farfetched for Brian to help him set up, he’d done it before once Roger had painstakingly taught him how. But normally he did it with a lot more complaining.

“Thank you,” said Roger, sincere and a little shy, when they were done. Brian grinned back and hurried to make sure the amp John made him was up and running. Roger watched him kneel by his amp fiddling with each knob, and decided, no, Freddie was wrong. And he wouldn’t fool himself into thinking otherwise. He’d pretend he thought nothing of him, his looks, his gentle demeanor, his shy nature, his loving eyes—because he knew Brian would never return those feelings, especially if he knew the truth.

It was too messy, the whole lot of it. It was one step too different in Roger’s mind. He’d been given a gift in that no one suspected him, not now that he’d moved far away from Truro. He wouldn’t risk that little bit of normalcy he had by indulging those feelings, wouldn’t risk his friendship, the band, and his own comfort. He’d stick to women if it meant he had fewer eyes on him.

~~~

“Oh go on, Rog, she won’t stop staring.” said John into his pint. Roger, with a little help from Brian, had finished packing away his kit. He was sweaty from the show, itchy under the tight fabric around his ribs, achy across his shoulders and tired. Dead tired.

“I’m not in the mood,” sighed Roger.

“But she’s stacked,” said Freddie, not bothering to cover his mouth. Roger glanced at the girl they were all talking about, sitting at the bar, skirt maybe six inches long, sweater skin tight around her, eyes on Roger.

“I just…” Roger couldn’t explain it. The weariness that came from doing a show like that. He, long ago, called it drummer fatigue. Said he was getting a full workout. The others didn’t know quiet enough about drums to disprove him. Yes his forearms and wrists and ankles were getting a workout but his whole body wasn’t. There was a reason he was always worn out like he’d run a marathon and it wasn’t because of difficult fills or grooves. “I’m tired.”

“It’s been a month since I’ve seen you with anyone,” teased John, “you might’ve forgotten how.”

“Just go, just go,” said Freddie tapping the tips of his boots to Roger’s shins under the table. “Go, go.”

Roger looked at them all, trying to work a way out of it. When he thought of nothing he felt John shove him out of the booth.

“Drive yourselves home,” spat Roger back at them, he could hear them suppressing laughs as he walked away. But he ignored it, trying to put up his usual charm. Charm that came naturally to him but not when he was so beat down after such a long night.

He asked her her name and forget it in an instant, she forgot his too, and they both wound up in the back of his van. There wasn’t much room now that the drums had been loaded in but there was always enough room for John and Brian to ride in back so there was enough room for her to spread out.

She tried to claw at his chest, he swatted her hands away. She reached down for his cock, he pinned her wrists back. She bucked up into the touch and stayed spread and pliant in his hands as he kissed his way down her body, stopping only when he was nestled between her legs.

It was easy, to get them off like this. He was so well practiced with his mouth, with his fingers, it only took a few minutes, he could do it in his sleep if he had to. And he liked that about himself, liked that women liked what he could do. He only wished, for once, there would be someone willing to do the same for him, wishing he wasn’t so good at this just because he had no other option. Part of him knew it wasn’t all their faults, it wasn’t as if women didn’t want to return the favour but that would mean a whole, night-ending conversation, a conversation that might get back to his friends, his classmates, not to mention Freddie Brian and John. It just wasn’t worth all of that.

When she came she grabbed Roger’s hair and forced him against her, he worked his fingers rougher, hoping to fuck her through it as best he could. When she finally stopped seizing, he sat up, wiped his mouth and turned down any of her flaccid attempts to grab his belt.

“That’s all for tonight,” said Roger, his ribs starting to ache.

“Fuck,” sighed the woman. Roger helped her right her clothes and offered he a hand to jump out of the van with.

He watched, lungs aching, as she found her car stepped inside and drove off. He closed up the van once she was out of the lot and headed around for the driver’s seat.

“Finally!” Roger looked up to see Freddie waiting by the pub’s back door.

“I,” Roger cleared his throat, “I told you to find a ride home.” He sounded full of the machismo he had practiced but he felt none of it.

Freddie made some remarks here and there about her the first minute or two of the drive, Roger didn’t really respond. He turned the music up between each comment until Freddie got distracted by humming the song on the radio and Roger could focus on the road. The road and his lack of satisfaction, the shame that brought with it. The release he wanted and the reasons he couldn’t have it, couldn’t bare to think of it filled his head while Freddie’s lazy singing made an attempt to drown it out.

“Go on, Blondie, don’t look so serious,” said Freddie.

“I’m just sleepy, Freddie, that’s all,” said Roger with a soft, unconvincing smile.

“Sing along with me, you can get all the high notes I keep missing,” said Freddie with an elbow into Roger’s sore ribs. Roger couldn’t wince, couldn’t let Freddie know he was sore, couldn’t explain why. And he tried, for Freddie’s sake to sing the high notes for him, and he tried, for his own sake, to pretend those high pitched noises weren’t coming from his own mouth.

~~~

Roger said goodnight to Freddie who was straddling the line between tipsy and drunk. He was eager to get into bed which worked perfectly for Roger who was eager to get into the shower. Once he was sure Freddie was asleep he padded his way to the shower. He locked the door, though Freddie always told him not too.

 _What if you fall and hit your head_ , he’d say each and every time he heard the lock twist. Roger thought it was worth it.

He turned on the water, their boiler took a good few minutes to get warm. He used that time to strip, to unwrap the tight, damp fabric around his middle. He didn’t bother looking in the mirror, he knew what he’d see, and he knew he didn’t like it. His lungs were glad to be uninhibited finally. He took big, gulping breaths, giving them the workout he knew they needed as he ran the damp bandage under the sink, wringing it out and rinsing the blood from the dry patch of skin that kept ripping just under his fourth rib on his left side.

He scrubbed himself raw as he always did after a show. The sweating was bad enough, but the sweat trapped under his little contraption made him feel disgusting. And, as always, he felt like a new man when he got out. The hot water rinsed off his anxieties from the day and reminded him that once again, he’d gone on undetected.

He spread some disinfectant on the scrape under his rib, it was healing but slowly. And he ignored, as he always did, the bruises that came from wearing his chest bound for so long, so consistently. He wrung out the long strip of unyeilding fabric in the sink a few more times, it had to dry by morning. It always did.

He wrapped a towel around himself and prepped for the worst part of the journey. The three, maybe even four, steps back to his room. He opened the door, clothes in a tight bundle in his hand, and peeked down the hall at Freddie’s door. There was no light, he had to be asleep. So Roger took one confident step out in to the hall, one more, and got a hand on his doorknob before —

“Rog?” said Freddie, stirring tea in the kitchen.

“Hey…hey, hey, Fred,” said Roger, his blood icy in his veins.

“What’s with?” Freddie mimes Roger’s towel, wrapped up high on his chest.

Roger shrugged, “habit?” He could feel his heart pounding out of his chest, and wondered if maybe Freddie could hear it too.

“Funny habit,” said Freddie with a genuine smile that disappeared behind his teacup. “Oh—sorry, would you like some,” he began rummaging around, looking for a second cup.

“N-no thanks,” said Roger, one foot in his room, “I’m exhausted.”

“Oh me too,” said Freddie, “just couldn’t sleep without tea—but, I won’t keep you—goodnight, darling!”

“Night,” Roger slammed his door and locked it, as if Freddie might chase him and burst through the door. He hung up his bandages to dry on the back of his desk chair as he did every night. And he combed through his hair in the dark, and he slipped on shorts and climbed into bed and wondered if maybe, Freddie was drunk enough to forget it.

~~~

The bruises on his ribs, a smattering of purples and yellows, wouldn’t ever fade, but the little scrape was healing well. As he wrapped his chest up the next morning he was careful to slip a cottonwool pad in to cushion his bloodied skin.

“Roger,” said Freddie with a knock on his door, “Brian’s here, he’s procrastinating on grading, I told him he could come out to the shops with us if he’s nice.”

“Oh, right now?” said Roger, trying not to sound frantic as he wrapped himself up quicker. His hands fumbled as he tucked in the ends and tried, and failed to open the few safety pins he used.

“Whenever you’re ready, as I said he’s procrastinating,” said Freddie.

“Be right out,” said Roger. He took a breath, calmed himself, and slid the safety pin through the fabric with practised ease. Freddie wouldn’t have barged in, wouldn’t have been able to, but the idea of it had Roger’s hands shaking as he combed his hair through.

“Oh—“ came Freddie’s voice muffled by the door, “no he locks it at night.”

“Do people break in here or something?” replied Brian.

“Don’t know—he bought the lock himself, it’s just one of those things,” said Freddie, lightly, without judgement.

“Why d’you think he needs it?”

There was a silence. Roger waited for Freddie to fill it as he pulled on his shirt, holding his breath trying to hear their conversation through his flimsy door.

“I used to think he was just furiously masturbating, which could well be the case, but I mean, Kash locked her door to stop her having nightmares, I think it’s just a comfort thing,” said Freddie finally. Roger let out a sigh of relief and hurried to arrange himself in his trousers before stumbling out of his room as if he hadn’t just been locked inside of it.

“Morning,” said Brian with a big, goofy grin.

“Morning,” said Roger, avoiding everyone’s eyes. “Well, let’s head out.”

~~~

Freddie had a habit of knocking whatever he wanted into the trolley, so Roger developed a habit of shouting out the prices of those items before slamming them back on the shelves. Brian had a basket on his arm, ready to grab the few items he needed as they rounded the corners on the shelves.

“I’m not shopping with you if you’ll complain about the prices for each thing,” said Freddie, knowing it was unreasonable but not caring as he stormed to the end of the aisle, trying to give Roger the silent treatment but not wanting to get too far from the trolley.

“Does he do this every time?” said Brian.

“He likes the theatrics,” laughed Roger. “I do the same once we hit the deli counter.”

“ _Ugh_ ,” groaned Brian. “If you won’t quit guzzling red meat will you at least quit smoking?” said Brian. “Doing both’s going to have you sprawled out dead by forty.”

“I most certainly will not,” said Roger. He liked the way Brian worried over him, and he knew at very least cigarettes were no good for him, but they roughened his voice, would hopefully make it a little deeper as time went one. That was worth the shortness of breath in Roger’s book.

“Hey, last night, I feel like we sort of ganged up on you about that girl, and…I’m sorry,” said Brian.

“You didn’t join in,” said Roger. “Why’re you apologising?”

“Because I know they won’t,” said Brian, his eyes on his shoes. “If you don’t want to...to take anyone home you don’t have to, it doesn’t make you less of a man or anything.”

“Oh yeah?” said Roger, a smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth, “any particular reason you don’t want me to take anyone home?”

“I didn’t say I didn’t want you to—just that—just that you don’t have to,” said Brian quickly, his face beet red like Roger hadn’t seen it in ages.

Roger wanted to keep it up, wanting to tease him about it, wanted to pretend for a little while longer that Brian wanted him. But he’d never last like that. He had to stay in reality if he wanted to keep on and that meant not daydreaming about what Brian could never want from him.

“I’m only joking,” said Roger, turning his attention back to the shelves. “I know you’re just tired of comparing your record against mine.”

“That’s not it either,” said Brian, Roger could practically hear him roll his eyes.

“Roger! Roger!” called Freddie from the end of the aisle, “two for one! Two for one!”

“On what?!” replied Roger.

“On charcoal!” called Freddie.

“Char—Fred we don’t have a grill,” said Roger, though he still sped up to meet Freddie at the corner, Brian close behind.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! I'm really happy to see the positive response this fic has got so far! That being said if anyone has specific warnings they want me to mention to avoid dysphoria lmk! Please comment if you're liking it <3333

He’d been dreaming, a good dream, a peaceful dream he had no chance of remembering when his stomach jolted him awake. Something about this phenomenon always escaped him, surprised him even. He’d never got the hang of it the way his sister had. Avoiding thinking of it at all costs meant he didn’t know when it was coming. But he was always prepared, that was the one thing he had in his favour. He shuffled out of bed, cold and tired and went to the back of the top drawer in his dresser where he kept the box. He tugged it out, and shook it. Empty.

“What?” he said quietly, as if the box might answer him. He couldn’t be out, he was never out. Not now, not right then, right when he really couldn’t be out.

But he’d been through this before and panicking would do him no good. He bound his chest, the scrape on his rib healed by now but another one forming where the edge of the bandage met Roger’s skin, rubbed raw from his movements all day. He was careful of the raw spots and pinned his work in place, the last thing he needed was something coming loose. He got dressed in a hurry, and though his clothes weren’t stained yet they would be before he got to the pharmacy. He didn’t bother with his balled up socks and instead stuffed as many tissues down his pants as he could before he slid his lock open.

Thankfully, Freddie was still asleep and wasn’t there to hassle Roger as he collected his keys and wallet and hurried out, walking quick to the pharmacy as if speed would really change much at this point.

A long time ago he’d grown paranoid that maybe the pharmacists noticed him, kept tabs on what he bought, how often he bought. He couldn’t buy in bulk, couldn’t hide that much, and part of him was sure that every cashier, every pill organiser in the pharmacy knew more than they let on. He always walked into the tampon aisle as if he’d never been before, as if he’d been sent on an errand for someone else. But no matter how good his confused man act was for the other customers, when he was being rung up by the cashier he was bright red and averting his eyes as he laid the money on the counter.

“Don’t worry,” teased the cashier, “no one thinks they’re for you.”

Roger wondered if that was supposed to make him feel better. He smirked and paid and silently thanked the cashier for giving him a paper bag rather than plastic, he couldn’t have anyone seeing the contents.

On a more cosmic level, Roger didn’t suppose there was much wrong with it. For a long time as a twelve year old he’d just seen it for what it was, something his body did. But with each passing year he got more embarrassed, more filled with a shame he couldn’t explain, as if his body was supposed to know, was supposed to stop doing this to him every month. As if each time it happened he’d failed in a way.

It didn’t make sense, and he knew it didn’t make sense, but knowing his feelings were irrational didn’t make them any less poignant. Freddie was awake when he got home but still dazed enough that he didn’t ask what Roger bought and he’d squirreled the boxes away before he could notice them, and snuck off to the bathroom.

Their bathroom didn’t have a bin, not one that Freddie knew about. When they first moved in Roger asked if they should put one in, Freddie asked why and Roger dropped it instantly. Now he kept a secret bin under their sink with the cleaner he knew Freddie would never touch and emptied it out into the dumpster each night when he had to. As he washed his hands he already felt weary of the next few days ahead of him. His whole life was a very intricate performance, something he couldn’t falter on, but during times like these the performance was more tiring, the connection with his body so much more distance, his focus so unable to leave the difference he knew lay between him and other men.

But he couldn’t stop to wallow. As far as anyone else was concerned, nothing was wrong. And he had to keep that facade up.

“Why’re you dressed already?” asked Freddie when Roger meandered back to the living room with him. “Did you go somewhere?”

“Couldn’t sleep,” said Roger. “Took a walk.”

“Mm,” said Freddie, his hands wrapped around his coffee the way Roger’s grannie always held her’s. “I wish we could call in sick for the recording today, it’s so gloomy outside.”

“Recording?” said Roger. “Is that today?”

“Yes,” sighed Freddie, “we’ve got to be perky and creative _all day._ ”

“Fuck,” groaned Roger, Freddie joined him.

~~~

His painkillers had run out an hour ago and when he asked Freddie for more, to help his ‘headache’, Freddie asked if he ought just see a doctor so Roger dropped it. His ribs ached, his stomach ached, all on their own, but the prolonged drumming added an extra bit of pain on top. And Brian was arguing with him. Well, not arguing, but sternly asking that he put more indescribable qualities into his drumming. Brian would finish a take and tell Roger to ‘pep it up’. He knew it wasn’t Brian’s fault, knew he was playing with a little less life in him, but he was so tired. He’d got far less sleep than he planned, he was stressed, his nerves frayed entirely and his ribs ached with each crash of his cymbals.

“I’m going to the restroom,” said Roger with a gravelly, sleep-deprived, smoke-aggravated voice.

“Alright hurry,” said Brian, “I really think we’re almost there.”

“ _I really think we’re almost there_ ,” mocked Roger. He picked his jacket up off the floor behind him and tucked it under his arm as he headed for the door.

“Need your jacket to piss?” teased John, meaning well, not knowing the pangs of anxiety it filled Roger with.

“I’m cold,” said Roger as evenly as he could before hurrying out and down the hall to the mens’ room. He locked himself in a stall and rummaged through his jacket pockets for what he needed. He washed his hands in an absent daze, so tired, so in pain, so ready to go home and try again the next day.

He barely acknowledged everyone as he fumbled back in and sat back down. They played well, Roger put the life into the drums that he needed to in the end and Brian praised him for ages over it, that brought his spirit back up. Having Brian call him their own personal Ginger Baker would make him smile on even his worst day.

“I mean it,” said Brian, a toothy grin on his face and Roger’s, “you’ll definitely pass him by if you keep going at this rate, you’ve almost bested him already.”

“Get a room,” said John with a roll of his eyes.

“Someone’s jealous,” said Freddie quickly, distracting from the embarrassed looks on Brian and Roger’s faces as they averted their eyes.

John giggled and prodded Brian with his foot from the chair he’d fully sunken into. “Maybe I am, you’ve never called me Jack Bruce, Brian.”

“And you’ve never called me Eric Clapton,” said Brian, a little more self conscious, holding his guitar close to himself for comfort.

“And no one’s ever called _me_ Eric Clapton,” said Freddie with an over-exaggerated pout. “He sings too, I wasn’t asking for compliments on my guitaring.”

“Guitaring?” said Brian with a smile.

“My guitarsion,” said Freddie, a cheeky smile painted across his face.

“Oi!” said their producer over the loud speaker. “We’re closing up shop, you’re professionals now, no burning the midnight oil.”

Brian gave a thumbs up in return, Freddie saluted, and they all began packing up for the night. Roger and Freddie had walked there. Roger, at the beginning of the night, thought it might easy his pain to get moving. But here, at the end of the night, he would rather die than trek home.

“Is anyone willing to drive us back?” said Roger, hopeful eyes shifting between John and Brian.

“I would but I walked,” said Brian.

“I didn’t walk,” said John, “I can take you too, Bri.”

“Perfect,” said Roger, clapping is hands together with the last scrap of his energy. “Let’s head out.”

Roger sat, his hands braced on his knees, fighting the urge to curl up, while John and Brian packed their instruments away. John handed Brian his keys and said if he wanted a ride home he had to pack up the boot with their guitars. Freddie followed him out, calling shotgun the whole way. Roger waited for a beat or two, for when he knew the car would be ready for him, and then stood. And stretched and shook his jacket out to flip his collar back.

“Oh,” said John, reaching down by Roger’s feet, “you dropped your…” he stood up straight, fingers hesitant around what he’d found, “your uh…tampon?”

“Ha,” said Roger, his heart pounding, his hands shaking as he took it from John’s hands and slid it back into the pocket he’d been so sure was secure. He considered pretending it wasn’t his, considered pretending it wasn’t a tampon at all, considered pretending he didn’t know how it got in jacket pocket, considered pretending John was the strange one for not carrying them with him at all times. And in those moments of panicked silence, he knew he was blushing, and he knew he looked as caught as he felt.

“It’s not my business,” said John, turning and taking a long stride towards the door.

“For nosebleeds,” he finally blurted out.

“Nosebleeds?” said John.

“Had one this morning—might be getting ill, my sister said these work…” said Roger. He wasn’t sure if John was buying it, Roger knew if someone told him the same story he wouldn’t buy it either.

“So you’re not some kind of pervert?” said John with a half-formed grin. “This isn’t a weird sex thing?”

“No,” Roger rolled his eyes. “What the hell would a pervert want with tampons anyway, how do you get off on that?”

John shrugged and laughed and seemed to loosen up a bit. Roger wasn’t sure what strange thing John imagined him using those tampons for but he didn’t care to find out, as long as he didn’t suspect the truth.

“So’s that why you took them into the loo? Your nose was bleeding?” said John.

“Yes,” said Roger, clenching his jaw and taking steps towards the door, hoping to influence John to do the same.

“You must be a real pro at stopping a nosebleed, you dealt with that in a minute or two,” said John.

“Mhm—We really ought to get going,” said Roger. He didn’t want to talk about it anymore. He wanted to move on and pretend it’d never happened, and, thankfully, John got distracted by some complaint he’d been to shy to voice during their rehearsal. Roger listened to his few grievances and faked interest as well as he could, using whatever gas was left in the tank to do it. But he didn’t care as long as it got John’s mind off of what he found.

~~~

Roger, on any given day, would say yes to a party. It was an excuse to let loose a little, to be a little freer than he normally was, to care a little less than he normally did and he needed that. He spent so much of his time being tightly wound, strict, and obscenely careful about the smallest things, the flimsiest interactions and looks. So when Brian told them all Tim was throwing one, Roger didn’t hesitate with accepting the invitation. A party, a little whiskey, would all be good for him.

“Having fun?” said Tim sidling up to him as Roger poured his third whiskey.

“Heaps,” said Roger with a warm grin. Tim returned it.

“Good,” said Tim with a clap on Roger’s shoulder. “Brian’s been so tense lately with your new album, figured all four of you could use a treat like this.”

“Fuck, we sure can,” said Roger, gulping down some of the cheap, unidentifiable whiskey Tim had out for everyone. “It’s been fun but, ya know,” he shrugged. “It’s turning into _real work_.” He grinned into his glass.

“Who could’ve predicted that?” laughed Tim. “I’ve got a girl ‘cross the room I’m working on, but there’s plenty of single women here, at your beck and call, pretty boy.” He clapped Roger’s shoulder once more before leaving his side.

_Pretty boy_. Roger had a love hate relationship with that title, a title given to him by many. On the one hand, pretty _boy_ made it pretty clear that those who used it were certain he was a boy. There was a comfort in the lack of their doubts. He liked being though of as pretty but who wouldn’t. His real issue was that the traits that made him pretty in some people’s eyes were traits he saw in his sister, in his mother. Traits that, in his younger years, made people double take, made people stare and wonder _what_ they were looking at. And in those moments he truly was a ‘what’ and not a ‘who’.

He shook the comment off with a bit more whiskey and tried to do as Tim said, tried to find some woman to sit and chat with. As he made his rounds through the room, picking off any woman who looked at him twice he found he couldn’t focus on a single word they threw at him. Something about them suddenly so uninteresting. He knew he was meant to be enthralled in some woman’s story as he scanned the room for Brian’s enormous hair.

“Where’s Brian?” said Roger, interrupting some anecdote. “Don’t see him.”

“Who’s Brian?” said the woman.

“He lives here,” spat Roger.

“Oh—I saw someone go into a bedroom earlier, must’ve been him since it wasn’t Tim.”

Roger didn’t bother with a goodbye, not even a segue as he swallowed the last of his whiskey and wandered over to Brian’s door. He hesitated, only briefly, before he turned the knob and took a step inside. Brian was there, in relative darkness, working away at something on his desk while his desk lamp tried and failed to light up the whole room. Roger shut the door behind himself, then and only then did Brian realise he was there.

“Rog,” said Brian with a soft smile, “how’re you?”

“Drunk,” said Roger with a grin to match.

“I can see that,” said Brian with an equal grin. “Not enjoying the party?”

Roger shrugged and took a step into the room, then another, then he sat at the edge of Brian’s bed, right next to his desk, and looked up at him with shining, glassy eyes.

“What is it?” said Brian in a comforting whisper. Ready to appease his drunkenness.

“Nothing,” replied Roger. He huffed and stared at Brian’s blurry face for a moment. His eyesight failed him a little more when he was drunk, but he could still see enough of Brian to swoon like he always pretended he didn’t. He reached out and twirled a curl around his finger. “You’re so nice looking.”

Brian laughed. “Thanks, Rog. So are you.”

“I wish you liked me,” said Roger too drunk to care it’d slipped out like that.

“Oh, I like you plenty,” said Brian as he set his scribbling pencil down.

“Mm,” said Roger as he laid back on Brian’s bed. “I’m so stressed.”

He heard Brian turn in his chair but was too dizzy to try and meet his eyes. “Why’re you stressed? The album?”

“Everything,” said Roger with a deep sigh. “Everything all the time. Never fucking stops does it. You finish one day and you just have to do the next day. Not fuckin’ fair.”

“Rog, you alright?” said Brian. Roger felt a hand on his knee.

He nodded and crossed his arms over his eyes. “I’m okay but I’m tired.”

“You had a long day,” said Brian.

“I’m always tired,” said Roger, unable to hide the whimper in his voice.

“Roger, what’s wrong?”

Roger thought for a minute, about letting it all out and telling someone. Telling Brian right then and there and letting him carry some of the weight for him. But no, not even drunk could he let that one slip.

“Nothing—I’m sorry,” Roger sat up suddenly, nearly bashing his forehead against Brian’s. “I’m sorry I should go, you have work—”

Brian shushed him and cut his thought process of right there. “You can stay as long as you like, you can sleep here if you want, it’s no trouble,” said Brian. That was tempting. To just fall asleep and not have to worry about the long trek home. It meant he wouldn’t have that safe, warm comfort of his locked bedroom. But if he stayed he’d have the safe, warm comfort of Brian. “You don’t have to stay but you don’t have to go.”

Roger stared at him for a moment, thought about spending the night curled up next to Brian, thought about waking up in an awkward hold and laughing about it over breakfast the next day. “I wanna stay,” he mumbled. Brian grinned back.

“You can lie down and sleep, you look exhausted,” said Brian.

“I’m okay,” said Roger, lying through his teeth to get a few more minutes chatting with Brian, “what’re you working on over there?”

“Grading maths tests again,” said Brian. “Let me read you the word problems, see if you can solve them before I can.”

“Okay,” sighed Roger. He laid down and kicked his shoes off. It took him a few tried with the whiskey coursing through him but he did it. And from his position, curled up on Brian’s bed he watched him scribble and listened to him recite a word problem that he was meant to be solving. He fell asleep before he heard the end of it.

~~~

He woke to the room still lit by a desk lamp, he had a blanket draped over him and he’d rolled comfortably on his side, away from the light. He blinked his eyes open and saw Brian’s thigh, a few inches from his nose, his hand a bit higher as he set a glass of water down on his side table for Roger to gulp down later in the night.

“Thank you,” croaked Roger. His voice hoarse and dry.

“You’re awake,” whispered Brian. “Might want to drink this now.”

Roger agreed and tried to sit up. Tried and damn near failed as each move he made sent shooting pains down his arms and across his torso. His lungs burned, his ribs were inflamed like they’d never been before. When he glanced at the clock he realised it’d been damn near a full 24 hours since he first pinned his binding on early that morning. But Brian didn’t notice the pain Roger was in as he struggled up, or else he wrote it off as sleepy soreness and weakness before handing Roger his cup.

“Thanks again,” wheezed Roger.

“S’alright,” said Brian. “I can give you clothes to wear to bed, you don’t have to wear all that shit.”

“That’d be good,” said Roger. He stretched out, tried to loosen his binding while Brian rummaged through his dresser, tried to give himself enough slack to sleep and heal but not so much that Brian would notice. But nothing would give, nothing would shift. He’d done too good of job earlier that morning.

“Here,” Brian tossed him a shirt and shorts.

A sense of panic set in as he considered how he’d change in front of Brian without a lot of things becoming plainly obvious. How he could sleep in his bindings after going so long. How he could control what Brian did or didn’t see in such strange circumstances, and how to get his body all back to how it was supposed to look the next day without Brian figuring it out.

“God—I think I need to go home,” said Roger.

“Missed that boat,” said Brian casually as he sat down on the pallet bed he’d made himself on the floor next to Roger.

“No, I do,” said Roger. He swung his feet over the edge of Brian’s bed and wondered if he ought to just call a cab or if he should at least try to see if all the trains he needed were running still.

“Whoa—whoa, it’s late, Rog,” said Brian from the floor. “You should stay here.”

“I can’t,” said Roger.

“Why not?”

“I…” Roger didn’t want to lie, and couldn’t really think of anything convincing anyway so he told the bare bones truth of, “I need to sleep alone.”

“You are,” said Brian, gesturing to the bed he’d made himself on the floor.

“I need the room to myself,” said Roger. Brian looked at him, a little sleepy, a lot confused. Roger knew it was an unfair request to make of Brian with no explanation. It was weird and obtrusive to the poor man who had already kindly given up his bed to Roger. The words ‘I can walk home’, were about to leave his lips again when Brian hoisted himself up and picked up the pillows he’d laid out on his floor. “What’re you doing?”

“I’m going to set this all back up on the couch,” said Brian with a sleepy voice and a soft smile.

“You don’t have to—”

“It’s fine,” said Brian with a wave of his hand as he bent down for his blanket. “The couch is a few steps from here, your flat is miles and miles. Much easier.”

“I’m sorry,” said Roger with a furrowed brow watching Brian ball up his bedding to go sleep on his own couch. “I’d take the couch but…I can’t.”

“Everyone’s got their quirks,” said Brian with a shrug. Roger muttered a few more apologies, Brian brushed them off as unnecessary and whispered a goodnight to him before shutting his door.

Roger wanted to sit and wallow in guilt. Brian was such a kind soul he’d do something so strange just to make Roger comfortable. He’d sleep on his own couch so Roger didn’t have to walk all the way home, all with no reason given. Roger wanted to really soak in those feelings and let them buzz around his head for awhile, wanted to think and rethink those little interactions until he convinced himself they meant nothing, the way he always did. But he couldn’t sit and think, he had to unpin the fabric around his chest, had to take big gulping breaths as his ribs screamed and his lungs cried.

He was tired, he was still tipsy, he didn’t care about washing his binding right then and there. Wouldn’t worry about trekking in secret to the bathroom, wouldn’t worry about the high chance of waking up to a wet strip of fabric that he _had_ to wrap around himself. No, he hung it over Brian’s desk chair, how he usually did with his own. He pulled Brian’s clothes on and got into his bed.

~~~

The morning was calm. Brian knocked on his door to wake him when he slept in, not wanting to intrude, and Roger told him he’d be out soon. Brian’s door didn’t lock so Roger stood with his knee pressed into the wood as he wrapped his chest up. His ribs were sore, far more so than they normally were but that came with the territory. He knew after a full day yesterday he wouldn’t feel fine the next morning. His bruises were more tender, and his breathing came a little harder but he had to do it.

He was meek when he came out of Brian’s room and peeked around looking for his big mop of dark curls. But he never found them, instead he waved to Tim, slumped over their breakfast table, looking like hell as he ate.

“Where’s Brian?” said Roger.

“Shower,” croaked Tim. “If you have to piss, the kitchen sink is free.”

“No thanks,” said Roger, suddenly aware of the way his trousers pressed against his bladder. “Is he almost out?”

Tim shook his head. “He takes like hour long showers.”

“Well—I really need to go so will you tell him I said goodbye?” asked Roger.

“Sure thing,” said Tim, not looking up from his plate as he massaged his temples.

A passed-on goodbye didn’t feel kind enough for all the trouble Brian had gone through but he couldn’t wait another hour. He headed back to his room and tugged his shoes back on before sitting at Brian’s desk and writing a note out on a scrap of paper that was mostly unused: ‘Thanks for everything, I’m sorry I made you sleep on the couch. I owe you for it, cash in whenever you like. Love, Rog.’

Roger stared at the ‘Love Rog’ and wondered if maybe he’d laid that on a little thick. But he’d written it in pen on the scratch bit of paper Brian still needed, he couldn’t just bin it. Crossing it out would look even stranger. In the end he decided he’d overthought it enough and hurried out with a quick wave to Tim as he went.

He took two trains home, both fairly short rides but they gave him enough time to mull the night over. To think back fondly on all Brian did for him. Poor thing was cramming maths in during a party but he stopped it all to deal with Roger’s drunken arse. He gave up his bed for him, gave up his room, never questioned why. It made Roger’s heart leap in a way he hated. In a way he knew it shouldn’t. Being himself was dangerous enough, being with another man was a death wish. And day dreaming about a friend, a friend who saw him as just a friend, was an embarrassing heartbreak waiting to happen.

And the worst part of it was, he couldn’t speak. Couldn’t say one word of any of it to any of his friends. When he cut his hair short and demanded his name be respected, anyone he once called a friend back in Truro left his side. He lived in such secret to be sure that didn’t happen again in London. Maybe it was better like this. If he didn’t reach out and tell anyone he knew who he _really_ was he might never have to confront it, maybe if he never talked out his muddled feelings for Brian they’d stop existing.

He got home, said hello to Freddie, made himself something to eat, and locked himself in his room, free of his binding and totally alone.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone! This chapter was a bitch to edit, so it took me a bit longer getting it up but I hope you like it all the same! If you do please comment <33333 it makes my day!

Each passing pub night, party, day out spent staring at Brian was another failure in his book. Another failure to be the type of normal he so desperately craved. He might’ve called his only true confidant, his sister Clare, might’ve had a long conversation about it to get it out of his head. But he was too old for it too, in his own mind. He felt old enough when he finally pinned down his gender at eighteen, but to still be tossing and turning over his sexuality had a misplaced sense of childishness around it. As if Roger should just grow up and move on.

If he thought about it too long he might see the holes in his theory, the loose threads in his thinking, so he didn’t. He focused on the album they were making, threw everything into his drumming and shirked the rest. And maybe that might’ve worked if Brian wasn’t in the band, if he weren’t part of the distraction Roger created for himself. If Roger’s creative drumming didn’t have Brian grinning and cheering him on, if he didn’t have to sit in the studio and watch Brian play his solo track, watch his hands carefully maneuver the neck of his guitar. He had such long fingers, Roger couldn’t help bite his cheek thinking of how perfectly those fingers could work him open.

The frustration, the strange sense of guilt, the panic, it all made for better drumming. Drumming that Roger hoped could last all night. If he was drumming he was thinking of nothing other than the count in his head. He couldn’t daydream and keep time. But where he had a reason to work tirelessly, the others were worn.

“Finally,” groaned John when Freddie announced they ought to call it a night.

“Oh—c’mon, we’re just getting into the good stuff,” said Roger on his drum stool, hopelessly.

“It does sound great,” said Freddie into the mic on the other side of the glass, “but you need a break, you’ll burn out at this rate and we’re far too young to burn out.”

“I’m fine,” said Roger into his hi-hat mic. Freddie was in the booth with the producer, the other three, laying down the backing track, were shoved into the studio together. It was getting warm, it was getting even later than they’d initially planned, and everyone was itching to go home. “We can knock out another song or two.”

“I don’t think so,” said Brian as he raised his guitar above his head and went searching for the case. John did the same.

“I think we’ve earned a night off,” said Freddie.

“Really,” said Roger, watching them pack up, “I can keep going.”

Freddie responded by leaving the mixing booth, a sure sign that even if the others agreed to more work, he’d be going home.

“We know you could,” said John with a laugh, “but let’s take a night off anyway.”

“Feel like we’ve been recording this album for ages, you think it’s ever going to actually get released?” said Roger as he reluctantly stood from his stool and rummaged around for his jacket. Freddie opened the door to the recording booth, the cold air from the hall was a welcome change from the stuffy heat of the closed booth.

“When we recored our last album it took the better part of what, nearly a whole year,” said John

“It was our first album,” said Roger as he pulled his arms through the sleeves of his coat. “And we all saw how it flopped, maybe we ought to shorten the production time?”

“See, you’re getting grumpy,” said Freddie in the doorway. “We need a break.”

“Just as well,” Brian locked up his guitar case, “I’ve got mounds of grading to do.”

“Everyone loves the teacher who forgets to grade shit on time,” said Freddie.

“Brian’s never been one to hand assignments in late,” said Roger, he patted his pockets for his keys and tossed them to Fredde. “Start the car I’ve gotta piss.”

Roger hurried past Freddie in the doorway, down the hall to the right where the men’s room was. He locked himself in a stall and his mind wandered away from him. He wondered how long it would last, how long he would stare at Brian and hoped he stared back, how long he’d get focused on the minutiae of Brian’s movements and figure, when he’d snap back to his old self, the self that knew how to play it safe. The self that didn’t have to drown himself in drumming to do it.

He took his time scrubbing his hands and sighed, deep and tired, at his reflection. He’d long ago stopped fighting what he saw, but in times like these, of great stress and anxiety, he couldn’t help pick out features to hate. Things he might’ve loved the day before became insecurities if he looked too long. He hurried out, eager to get away from the grimy mirror. He swung the door out and nearly jumped out of his skin when Brian was waiting just outside.

“Christ—The fuck are you doing, you scared me half to death,” said Roger with short breaths and a laugh.

“I uh—I told the others but I thought you ought to know as well,” said Brian.

“Told ‘em what?” said Roger.

“I broke it off with Chrissie, couple nights back, I thought…” Brian stared at him, unsure, shy as he shifted from foot to foot and wrung his hands in the particular way he always did when he was thinking a bit too hard, “well I thought you’d…like to know.”

“Oh,” said Roger. He couldn’t be misreading that…could he. Brian tracking him down to privately tell him he was single, that had to mean something. Or maybe he just wanted it to mean something, maybe Brian was just reaching out to him for comfort. They’d known each other the longest and Roger tended to be better with more serious topics than Freddie. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine, I’m okay,” replied Brian quickly. Roger knew he didn’t misread that. The way Brian answered in an instant, looked eager, looked like he was waiting to be asked, waiting to be whisked away back home.

“Do you want…I could…I could stay with you if you didn’t want to be alone?” offered Roger.

“I…fuck—I would but I meant it, I really do have to grade the—” began Brian.

“Oh—oh no, it’s fine, it’s—another time—” said Roger, suddenly humiliated to have even offered. He took a step away from Brian and started back down the hall with one final, “goodnight, Bri!”

He didn’t look back as he rushed out to his van where Freddie was already settled in the passenger seat. He had the music up which Roger didn’t mind or really even notice. He peeled out of the parking lot like he’d committed a crime and only stopped flooring the gas pedal when he hit a red light.

It was foolish is what it was. Brian was a foolish choice for him to become totally infatuated with. It was risky in too many ways. It could ruin their friendship, which would ruin the band, which would ruin his career, which would ruin his life, a life that was already on tricky footing. If he wanted any chance of staying afloat, of staying ahead of his own secrets, he had to play it much safer than Brian.

“I need a fucking drink,” groaned Roger.

“I thought you’d never ask,” said Freddie as he directed him to the nearest pub.

~~~

Drunken darts did very little to clear his mind. Freddie was off making friends with the whole pub while Roger was doing his best not to get lost even further in his thoughts. He threw darts with little intent on hitting the board and kept his pint in one hand while he did so.

“You’re meant to aim it,” said a woman, sat by the board, watching his movements and snickering at each failed shot.

“I _am_ aiming,” said Roger. He threw another one into the wall.

“For the board?” teased the woman. She collected his darts for him and stood at his side. “It’s meant to be like this.” Her shot wasn’t extraordinary but it did hit the board. She passed the darts off to Roger who threw another one directly into the wall.

“Maybe it’s not my game,” said Roger.

“Maybe it’s not,” laughed the woman. She was pretty. Pin straight hair, a bit taller than him, bright shining brown eyes. Maybe she could be what he needed. A stranger, a nobody with no pull in his life, a _woman_. Maybe she could cure his ills and bring him that one step closer to being a normal man.

“What’re you drinking?” said Roger.

They sat at the bar together, talking about nothing important. All throw away conversation just to have the excuse to size each other up, to decide how the night would end in their own minds and hoped the other agreed. The woman asked if Roger could tie a knot in a cherry stem and demonstrated fairly quickly that she could, that she was good with her tongue, that she wanted to prove it to him. Roger didn’t normally fall for such adolescent forms of seduction, but he decided he might as well tonight. So when Freddie asked to go home, Roger handed him the keys and said he’d find his own way back.

She lived near the pub so they walked, hand in hand, back. Roger hoped he had enough alcohol in him that she couldn’t feel in his grip how nervous he was. Maybe it was the beer, maybe it was the desperation to stop his feelings for Brian, maybe it was the nagging fear that no one could actually want him that made him so willing to follow this woman home. But he didn’t care.

She was a good kisser, a fairly aggressive one at that. She muttered something about her roommates being gone as she unlocked her door. She led him by the hand through her little flat, to her room. She fell back onto her bed and waited for Roger to join her. She tugged at her trousers while Roger, his knees bracketing her hips, unbuttoned her top. He’d made almost zero progress before she took his hand and guided it between her legs. She sighed, high and soft, when she felt his fingers work in her.

It hadn’t occurred to him before that he never watched the women he got off. That he always focused on what he was doing rather than who he was doing it with. He’d never watched a woman’s face while he made her writhe. And he couldn’t say he liked it. The way her moans got higher and higher, the way she looked at him with pleading eyes, the way she whispered for more, the way she clawed up his arm, it just made it harder to focus on finishing her off.

In his head he knew he’d end up with a woman. Women were safer from the outside, and he figured that privately they would be more understanding of who he was. But as he stared down at the woman he’d internally decided he’d cross that last bridge with, he found it impossible to see himself with her, with any woman. He could enjoy fucking women if he focused on making them come, if he pointedly ignored who they were, if he drowned out their girlish moans of his name.

She arched off the bed as she came, Roger’s hand worked robotically to fuck her through it. She licked his fingers clean when he pulled out of her and grinned up at him with devilish eyes that made Roger’s stomach turn. She pulled him into a searing kiss and reached down confidently to grab the sock in Roger’s trousers. Roger hadn’t paid it much mind, more focused on trying to decipher if he liked the kiss she’d pulled him into or if it was just easy to pretend she was someone else with his eyes closed.

She unzipped his trousers and dipped her hand in the waistband of his pants.

“Is…that…” she muttered as she pulled out the balled up socks. She paused for a beat before letting the socks drop from her grip. Her hand aggressively dove back into Roger’s pants, pressing her fingers roughly against him before pulling away horrified. “What—what the fuck are you?”

Roger froze for a moment, unsure of what answer she wanted, what answer would make her feel better. And in that moment of panic she threw him off her bed and held the hand she’d touched him with far away, as if it were contaminated. “Get the fuck out—I’m not a lesbian or—whatever the fuck you are—get the fuck out!”

“I—I can explain,” said Roger hopelessly.

“I don’t want you to!” screamed the woman as she threw his balled up socks at him. “Get the fuck out!”

Roger might’ve asked her to keep this quiet, might’ve begged her to tell no one, but he saw no sympathy in her eyes. Just disgust and fear. So he ran out, zipping and buttoning his trousers just before he opened her front door and rushed down the steps.

Roger had to walk home, the trains were far out of his way and he was too paranoid to let a cabbie take him. Everyone he passed on the road looked at him like they knew. He was grateful for the cold air, for the excuse to cross his arms tight, as if the passersby could see the fabric wrapped around his chest and he had to cover it his whole walk home.

After so many years of living as himself, he felt he’d been kicked straight back to Truro. Straight back to the days where he couldn’t trust a soul, where there was always someone around the corner ready to knock him over and demand he show them what he was hiding. That feeling of paranoia, the fear he used to feel walking outside in his hometown, he was so sure he’d never feel it again.

But he focused on each step, counting them to himself as he made the shortest trip home he could think of. His hands shook as he unlocked his and Freddie’s front door and slammed it shut. Locking the doorknob, locking the deadbolt, threading the chain and rushing to his room.

Once inside, he had a moment to think the whole night through without looking over his shoulder or breaking into a random sprint when his anxiety convinced him he’d heard footsteps. He took a few deep breaths. Kicked his shoes off, unpinned his bandages, and tugged his sweaty clothes off.

She’d been so sweet at the bar. So kind and charming. So fun and spontaneous. She liked Roger for almost the whole night. He knew he didn’t look like other men, he took great care to change what needed to be changed, and he knew he wasn’t what she hoped she’d get. But was he that disgusting? That off putting and confusing to look at that she stopped seeing him as a person and started seeing him as a creature that tricked his way into her bedroom. And to top it all of Roger hadn’t even liked it with her, hadn’t even been sure he would’ve let her touch him had she not shoved her hand against him.

He curled up in bed and wondered, as he drifted off, if he was just better off alone. Alone he’d never have to explain to a single soul why his body looked the way it did. He’d be alone, he’d be lonely, but he’d be safe and that safety was more palatable than happiness, at least for the moment.

~~~

Roger woke a little later than usual. Sat up, stretched, and let the memory of the night before sink in. He couldn’t get the mental image of that woman’s disgusted face out of his head. Her voice asking ‘what’ he was rang in his ears loud and obtrusive. He cleared his throat, rubbed his eyes, tried to force the image, the sound out to no avail. He stood, pulled his shirt over his head, and grabbed the bandage he draped over his chair. He held it in place and wrapped once, twice around himself, his sleepy hands making it a bit more difficult.

“He’s awake, let me just get him,” said Freddie’s muffled voice from the kitchen. “Rog!” called Freddie as he meandered to Roger’s door. Roger wondered absently why he couldn’t remember locking it the night before. Surely he had. He always did. “Phone for you,” said Freddie as he swung the door open, the unengaged lock laying limp against the wall. “Good, you’re awake, I—oh I…oh.”

“Get,” said Roger in a quiet voice, his hands crossed tight over his chest. He tried again in a louder voice, “get out! Get the fuck out!”

“I’m sorry,” screamed Freddie. Roger shoved his shoulder into the door, slamming it just as Freddie pulled it closed.

“Can’t get one fucking ounce of privacy in this fucking house, always fucking barging in like you fucking own the place—” screamed Roger through the door. His heart beating out of his chest as he flailed trying to wrap it up.

“I’m sorry,” screamed Freddie, sad and pleading. “I’m sorry!”

Roger made a point of threading the lock as loudly as he could and fumbling back to his bed, wanting to try the whole day over. His hands shook as he stretched the fabric across his chest, his breathing came a little harsher as he tried to calm down, and his mind raced.

He hadn’t been walked in on in ages. Almost every experience like that had been purposeful, done to humiliate him, to satisfy other people’s curiosity about ‘what’ he was. He couldn’t help the way he sweated, the way his mind jumped to the worst assumptions. The way he imagined Freddie running back to the phone and telling the world Roger was far from what they thought he was. He could’ve cried if he hadn’t been so terrified, to terrified to loosen his grip on the quilt covering his bed.

“Roger?” said Freddie, quiet, calmly. His feet shifting under him, squeaking the floorboards with each movement.

“Is it so hard to fucking knock?” Roger wanted to yell that but he didn’t have the energy left in him. It’d all seeped out slowly as panic replaced it.

“I’m sorry,” said Freddie, “I’m really sorry, I didn’t mean to.”

“Who was…” Roger rubbed his face tiredly, “who was on the phone?”

“Oh, just Brian,” said Freddie. “I said you’d call back later.”

“Okay,” said Roger, he took a deep breath. “Okay.”

“Can I come in?” said Freddie.

“Why?” spat Roger.

“Please,” replied Freddie, a distinctive shake in his voice.

On the one hand, Roger wanted to stay in his room until he melted into the wallpaper. On the other, the jig was up. At least for Freddie. There was no sense leaving the door locked, hiding himself away anymore. Defeated, he stood on shaky legs and unlocked the door. Meekly opening it a crack for Freddie and sitting back on the end of his bed.

Freddie took a tentative step inside. Roger watched how his eyes, however unconsciously, drifted down to his bindings, down to the bruises that peeked out at the base of Roger’s ribs, then back up to his face. Examining every inch of it. Roger’d seen that gaze before, the look of someone trying to picture him how he was before.

“Fuck off with that,” said Roger.

“With what?” said Freddie.

“I know what you’re doing, stop looking at me like that,” spat Roger.

“Sorry,” said Freddie. “I didn’t know—I didn’t know the lock—I didn’t know it was to keep _me_ out, I didn’t—I’m sorry.”

“It’s done now,” said Roger, coldly, unfeeling. He stood and pried open his closet door, it tended to stick in the humidity, and grabbed the first shirt he saw, tugging it over his head roughly.

“Those bruises,” said Freddie quietly.

“Are none of your fucking business,” said Roger, a little too aggressive.

“Right—sorry,” said Freddie. Roger pulled trousers out and tugged them on as well, shielding Freddie a bit from the way he filled them out with balled up socks. “I...I don’t know what to say here, Rog.”

“There’s nothing to say,” said Roger. He sat back on his bed and tugged on his shoes.

“There is something to say,” said Freddie, with a bit more bite to his words.

“Look,” Roger mustered up the very last of his courage, “it’s no one’s business but my own—I’m not a liar, I’m not a freak, I’m not confused about anything—”

“I know,” said Freddie, his eyes sad and worried.

“Okay, then that’s the end of it.” Roger’s pulse was still a mile a minute. “We don’t have to talk about it.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” said Freddie, his voice raising to a normal volume.

“It’s not your fucking business—”

“It’s not,” said Freddie, “but why didn’t you tell me instead of buying a lock? Did I…did I ever—did I do something that…” his words trailed off but Roger knew what they would’ve been. And he softened.

“No,” Roger took a breath out, “no you didn’t do anything wrong.”

“You can say if I did—”

“You didn’t,” said Roger with a grin.

“Okay,” Freddie’s eyes welled up.

“Fred, you don’t need to,” said Roger. He hesitated on the first step, but fell into the other few that it took to get to Freddie, to wrap his arms around him. Freddie hugged him back, his hands flinching over every undulation of Roger’s uneven wrapping, as if he were touching some private part of Roger. “Please don’t cry.”

“I’m not crying,” said Freddie, his voice strained an uneven in his ear.

“You sound like you’re crying,” replied Roger with a laugh.

“Maybe that’s just how my voice sounds,” said Freddie with a sniffle.

Roger rocked him back and forth, a little too hard, hoping to get a smile out of him. He stopped only when he heard Freddie laugh in his ear. He pulled away and let Freddie hide his red, teary eyes from him under the pretense of pouring them both some coffee. Roger followed and sat, and accepted the mug of coffee Freddie offered him, though he couldn’t say he was keen on eating or drinking anything right at the moment. Freddie didn’t seem to be either. He stirred his coffee listlessly.

“I won’t barge in anymore,” said Freddie.

“S’all right,” said Roger. “I don’t really need to lock it anymore.”

“The…it’s not my business,” Freddie held his hands up, “but the bruises looked…bad.”

“Well…” Roger shrugged. “It’s the way it has to be.”

“If you wanted, you could stop…doing that. While you’re home anyway,” said Freddie. “I wouldn’t mind if you didn’t.”

“Maybe,” said Roger. The idea of having somewhere to breathe other than his locked bedroom sounded nice. He’d missed that from Truro. The feeling of getting home and having Clare unpin his wrappings was one he’d missed dearly in the years he’d been away. “I think that’d be good.”

“Oh,” Freddie cleared his throat, “you need to call Brian back.”

“Not in the mood,” said Roger with a smile he hoped would cover the sadness on his face.

“Do you fancy him?” said Freddie, a bit of his usually fishwife nature coming back out.

Roger bit his cheek, no sense in lying now. “Yes.” Freddie raised an eyebrow. “Think I’m off women.”

“You and me both,” said Freddie with a choked laugh.

“Since when?” said Roger with a curious grin.

“God, since before London that’s for sure,” Freddie smirked and traced his thumbnail through the grain of their table. “Never told anyone.”

“I’ve never told anyone either.”

“Well,” Freddie smiled and blinked back the tears welling in his eyes, “haven’t we been stupid.”

Roger smiled a similar tear smile and nodded. “Very stupid indeed.”

“You think you could keep it to yourself though?” said Freddie a bit quieter. “Don’t want Mary to find out through gossip.”

“I—” Roger laughed, “I think we’ve evened out our secrets. I won’t tell yours if you don’t tell mine.”

Freddie smirked and took a big sip of his coffee. Roger did the same. Let the warmth of it envelope him as it coated his throat, let the heat calm him, relax his muscles, ease his heart back into a resting rate, ease his mind back into a state of calm.

“I think Brian fancies you too, by the way,” said Freddie, eager as ever to talk about something a bit more cheery. Roger couldn’t blame him. “Didn’t even seem sad about leaving Chrissie, just desperate to tell you about it.”

“He wouldn’t fancy me if he knew,” said Roger. Freddie scoffed. “I mean it.”

“You get laid every other night, Rog, people don’t care,” said Freddie.

“I…don’t really,” said Roger. “I get people off, very good at that. But that last time anyone’s…reciprocated I was still at a Catholic girls’ school in Truro.”

“Oh,” said Freddie with an air of disbelief. “Even so I think there’s no point not trying it on with Brian.”

“There is,” said Roger, the humour gone from his voice. “It could fuck the band up, could fuck our friendship up, and I’d have to be even more different than I already am—”

“Okay, okay,” said Freddie, interrupting with a hand on Roger’s wrist. “Forget I mentioned it.”

“It’s better that way,” said Roger tiredly.

“I understand that,” said Freddie with a smirk. “Better than most.”

The radio filled out the silence between them. Roger eyed Freddie and the way he blew on his coffee, and Freddie eyed Roger and the way he drummed his fingers on the table. There was something comforting about the vulnerability between them in that moment. Both’s last secrets had been laid out and accepted so easily. So easily that Roger wondered why he bothered hiding himself for so long, and he was fairly sure Freddie thought the same.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this chapter took me a little longer obviously, things piled up and I couldn't really focus on writing the way I wanted to but hopefully the wait was worth it! I hope you enjoy it and if you do please comment <33

Freddie put it behind them quite easily. For all Roger’s worrying and secret-keeping, it became a nonissue almost instantly. He’d occasionally ask, when Roger made it back to their flat, how his ribs were feeling, a subtle reminder that he ought to take the bandages off, though Freddie would never outright ask him to do it. Roger was just as gentle with any mentions of Mary, with Freddie talking about their plans for the future. Neither was ready to let the world know them fully and their flat became a safe haven for the two of them.

Things were shit. They were broke, they were overworked, they were both leading lives built around precarious half truths, and Freddie’d even gone and got the flu with no real funding for medicine, but at very least they could go home and be themselves. Go home and not worry about their words, their mannerisms, their complaints. They could just be. And after a day of working his and Freddie’s stall alone, Roger was eager to get back to the safety of their flat.

Within minutes of getting home, he’d tossed the safety pins in the general direction of his room and unwound the fabric around him until it pooled at his hips and slipped off under his shirt. It was almost instantly after telling Freddie, after gaining the ability to take that bandage off that he wondered how he ever survived wearing it right up until he got in bed.

“That’s your version of when men in the 50’s came home and poured a big scotch,” said Freddie with a snicker from the couch. Roger couldn’t help but laugh too as he hung up the fabric on the back of his desk chair. “How was it?’

“Fucking boring,” said Roger.

“Make any sales?” said Freddie.

“A few, I never realised how dull that stall is without you there,” Roger meandered back to their little living room and flopped on the couch with Freddie. He stretched his legs across Freddie’s lap who barely noticed him there, too focused on the quiet noise of the telly. “How are you feeling?”

“I keep telling, you I’m _fine_ ,” said Freddie.

“What if this flu turns into laryngitis and then throat cancer and then you have to get your throat removed? Hm?” insisted Roger. “Who’s going to foot the bill of our records if that happens.”

Freddie tried very hard not to smile at Roger and to instead glare at him. “If I get throat cancer and have my throat _removed_ then I will give you all my savings.”

“I’ve seen your bank statements,” said Roger, “that’s no prize.”

Freddie rolled his eyes and let a grin spread across his face. He put a hand on Roger’s leg absently and stared deeper into the telly, Roger closed his eyes and let the needling sound of whatever program Freddie had on lull him to sleep after a long day of trying to sell clothes to people who, frankly, did not want to buy them.

He may have just drifted off, may have been asleep for ten odd minutes when a knock at the door woke him up. He froze, feeling rather exposed despite the two locks on their front door, the two locks and assurance that neither of them would be unlocked until he was properly covered up.

“Who is it?” said Freddie, his voice hoarse from his persistent cough.

“It’s me—er—Brian. I brought you by some soup, it’s the kind my mum makes. I’m new to the recipe but it ended up being rather—” began Brian on the other side of the door.

“Wait—wait, hold on, save the conversation for when I open the damn door,” said Freddie with a croaky laugh. He patted Roger’s legs and whispered, “get up.”

Roger groaned and did as he was asked, padding his way to his bedroom and staring down at the bandage with sheer exhaustion. The thought of having to put it back on a bit too unbearable in the moment. He opted instead for a sweater that was bulky enough to disguise him how he liked. It wasn’t perfect but for the purpose of helping Brian find room for soup in their fridge it would do.

“I can heat it for you if you like,” said Brian in the kitchen.

“Thank you, dear, I would love that,” said Freddie as the door closed.

“Is uh…is Roger in?” said Brian. Roger felt his cheeks heat up a bit at the way he said his name.

“Rog!” called Freddie. Roger tried to gauge how his chest looked but even on his toes he couldn’t see past his shoulders in the mirror he had propped up on his dresser.

“Coming!” called Roger. Freddie was already back on the couch, attention entirely on the soap opera he’d been watching.

“Is any pot okay?” said Brian from the kitchen.

“We’ve only got the one,” replied Roger, rounding the corner into the kitchen.

“Oh, there you are.” Brian grinned with his usual nervous nature poking through. “I brought soup—I need to heat it for him.”

“I guessed that,” said Roger, tapping his finger on the container Brian had brought over. “If Fred didn’t already say it, thanks.”

“Of course.” Brian awkwardly fumbled with the pot in his hand, nearly dropping it before he set it on the hob. He twisted the gas on and looked at Roger with a red face and a smile. “So you—you’re doing all right? Haven’t caught anything from him?”

“Not yet,” Roger held up his crossed fingers. “We’ll see.”

“Well, if you’re not too busy with him and the shop and all that then, I was wondering if you’d want to, er,” he cleared his throat and stood up a little straighter.

“Do I want to what?”

“Er,” Brian laughed at himself, his cheeks still red. Roger smiled back but held his breath, waiting for him to finish the thought. “Want to help me grade?”

“Help you grade?” said Roger, making no attempt to cover the fact that he’d been expecting a different question.

“I—well—you’re so good at maths I thought—I’ve just been so overwhelmed with it lately I thought…You can say no,” added Brian with an anxiety laced laugh.

“I—no, no, I can help,” said Roger. He couldn’t help feel a little embarrassed that he’d so brazenly assumed Brian was asking him for a night out, or, knowing Brian, a night in. He hoped that embarrassment didn’t show in his face as he helped Brian heat up Freddie’s soup.

“It’s just low level calculus,” said Brian, after an uncomfortable amount of silence.

“What?” said Roger, having lost the thread of conversation a minute or two ago.

“The homework,” said Brian. “Mostly low level calculus.”

“Oh,” said Roger. “How fun.”

“I really appreciate it,” added Brian when Roger’s tone was less than enthusiastic.

“You can owe me,” said Roger. “When d’you need me?”

“Whenever you can,” said Brian.

“Don’t you have a due date?” said Roger.

“Oh, yeah, I guess it does—I’ll look up when it is and let you know.”

“ _You_ of all people don’t know the due date?” Roger scoffed. “You’re getting lazy, May.”

Roger ladled out soup for Freddie and served it to him on the tv tray they lovingly called their dining table. Brian left them the container and made Roger promise to bring it back when he came over. Roger thanked him once more, Freddie did the same from the couch, before locking the door up behind him.

“Is the soup good?” said Roger, ladling himself some before joining Freddie in their living room.

“I can’t taste,” muttered Freddie.

Roger took a bite and kicked his feet up on the coffee table. “Yeah, it’s good.”

“So…you going to go grade with him?” teased Freddie.

“I told you he didn’t fancy me,” sighed Roger.

“Since when does he need help grading?” Freddie rolled his eyes. “Honestly, it’s like you’re _trying_ not to notice.”

“Am not,” groaned Roger.

“You don’t think it’s sort of funny how he asked you to come over to his flat to help him finish the work he finishes himself every other week with no complaint?”

Roger chewed his lip nervously. Freddie had a point. And while the idea that Brian did fancy him, that maybe this was his introverted method of telling him. And while Roger could daydream later about the idea of it, of Brian wanting to be with him, of Roger telling him the same, it would mean a lot of conversation. A lot of revelations and explanations and prayers that those wouldn’t tear their friendship apart and take the band with it.

“I guess it’s funny,” said Roger, the soup bowl started to burn his hand, though he didn’t notice. “Not worth it, though.”

“Oh fuck, of course it’s worth it—”

“Drop it,” snapped Roger. He could feel Freddie looking at him, but he wouldn’t look back. He focused on his soup until Freddie turned away with a sigh.

~~~

“Am I overthinking this or is this problem more complex than the others?” Roger handed off one of the tests he’d been grading to Brian.

“Bonus question,” said Brian. “Bit more complicated. So if most of the students didn’t do it correctly, it’s just extra points for those who did.”

“Wish I had you as my teacher,” said Roger, sucking his teeth.

“As if you needed help in maths,” said Brian with a laugh. He was sat on his bed, crosslegged with textbook in his lap for a table. He let Roger work at his desk and with each passing minute of watching the way Brian hunched over his test paper he felt more and more guilty for taking it.

“I did at the beginning,” Roger scribbled something out on his scratch paper but quickly lost the thread of the problem he was solving. “Took a lot of studying…Fuck this kid.”

“What?” said Brian with a confused laugh.

“I keep trying to use the procedure he’s written out, it’s all fucking wrong but he’s getting the right answers on accident.” Roger flipped the paper over to read off the name written at the top. “Mark. Typical fucking Mark.”

“Is it?” said Brian. “Don’t know many Marks.”

“Neither do I, but I assume this is typical of them.”

“Don’t take this badly,” said Brian with a quiet voice that made Roger turn around in his chair, eager to hear what slander Brian was about to throw at him, “but you don’t seem like you study.”

“Are you calling me slow?” said Roger.

“No—of course not,” said Brian, so quick he stumbled over his own words. “I only mean, you seem like the type who doesn’t have to study. I figure once you’ve learned a concept there’s no real confusion about it for you.”

“I guess that’s true, to an extent.” Roger set aside the paper he’d finished and took another from the stack. “I did study quite a bit before university but that was mostly ‘cause I had fuck all to do back then.”

“You? You had fuck all to do when you were eighteen and about to leave Truro forever?” Brian laughed. “Not likely.”

“Well,” said Roger, unsure how to cover his tracks, trying to avoid talking about the school year he spent holed up in his room, too terrified to leave it, “still had to get into university didn’t I? I got a lot of reading done that year, I’d just set a record on in our room and power through my textbooks, then my dad’s old textbooks and so on. Poor Clare couldn’t do any of that, she can’t focus when music’s playing and I couldn’t focus without it.”

“How’s that?” said Brian.

“I can’t focus without music?” said Roger with a cocked head. “She can’t focus with it? But I’m the oldest so I just played my records.”

“You said ‘our room’, as if you and Clare shared,” said Brian.

“Oh,” said Roger. His circumstances, and his closeness to Clare meant neither of them minded sharing even after Roger told her. But he often forget it was, on the surface, unusual. “Small house.”

“I guess I’m so used to the solitude, the thought of sharing my room with a sister would drive me up the wall,” said Brian. “The thought of sharing a room with anyone still mystifies me.”

“You are a very particular person,” said Roger with a smile. “I can envision you giving your future wife her own separate room just so you can organise yours the way you like it.”

“Well,” said Brian with a noncommittal shrug. Roger couldn’t be sure what he’d said but somewhere in his words there must have been a misstep. Brian refocused on his work in silence, forcing Roger to do the same. But with no chatter, no music, no honking horns from the street down below, he couldn’t keep his eyes on the word problems, he couldn’t sort out the answers. All he could do was fidget, scribble down senseless arithmetic, and listen to the way Brian’s pen moved across his paper.

“Would it be all right if I turned on music?” said Roger after a solid four or five minutes of uninterrupted silence. “Just can’t focus like this.”

“Oh—sure, of course,” said Brian. He gestured to his records. “Take your pick.”

Roger left Brian’s desk and thumbed through the box of records Brian had on the floor by his spinner. “Lot of shit in here.”

“I like it all,” said Brian.

“At least it’s not fucking opera. Freddie whinges about my shit then puts on a fucking opera and calls _me_ crazy for not liking it.” Roger pulled out an album. “I actually like the Hollies.”

“Oh is...” said Brian, his words trailing off as Roger unsheathed the record.

“Is what?”

“Nothing I just, that record…” Brian laughed, “sort of strange to say, but I lost my virginity to it.”

“Oh?” said Roger with a cheeky grin. “And how long ago was that? Last month?”

“Fuck off,” said Brian, eyes turning back to his paper.

“I’m joking,” said Roger as he put the needle down on the vinyl. “I wish I had a song I lost it to, must be nice.”

“It’s not nice,” laughed Brian. “Can’t hear it without reliving the whole embarrassing affair.”

“Embarrassing?” Roger dramatically sat at the foot of Brian’s bed, disturbing the carefully organised papers in his wake. “How so?”

“Er,” laughed Brian as he tugged papers out from under Roger’s thighs, “the usual embarrassment, I suppose. I was very outspoken about my excitement let’s just say.”

“Oh god, did you thank her?” said Roger, half hoping he didn’t for his own sake.

“I thanked her,” said Brian with a groan and a hand pressed to his temple. Roger would’ve laughed if the secondhand embarrassment didn’t have him curling in on himself.

“Did she ever fuck you again after that?” said Roger, a mix of pain and laughter on his face, the same expression on Brian as he broke out into a wheezing laugh and shook his head. Roger put a hand to his chest and groaned through a laugh as Brian put his head in his hands and shook with an even mix of residual embarrassment and laughter.

“Don’t tell Freddie, he’ll have a field day,” said Brian.

“It would hurt me too much to ever try and repeat,” said Roger. Brian giggled, his face still screwed up with embarrassment, the memory clearly still at the forefront of his mind. “Well I _have_ done it since then.”

“Really aiming low aren’t we?” teased Roger.

“Go on,” Brian shook his hands out, “your’s must’ve been embarrassing as well, you’ve got to even it out.”

“Like fuck,” laughed Roger. “Nothing beats thanking the poor woman.”

“C’mon, it can’t’ve been great, give me something,” said Brian.

Roger laughed a bit, but it faded when Brian prompted him again for a snippet of his own story. It wasn’t a bad story, nothing terribly embarrassing. He and a friend, both sixteen in a field behind Roger’s school. He used to be rather fond of that memory and the other boy in it. But that fondness to turned to mistrust and hate his senior year when that boy called him an abomination that he was sorry he ever touched.

“Mine’s not fun,” said Roger with a half-hearted laugh, but the sadness must’ve read clear on his face by the way Brian’s expression changed.

“Oh, sorry,” he muttered, “didn’t mean to bring something up.”

“It’s fine,” said Roger. It was fine too. But the playful mood had effectively died. They both stayed silent for a moment while the record spun, both unsure of what to say, in what direction to turn the conversation after it’d come to such a screeching halt. “Why do you look so pensive?”

“I don’t mean to,” Brian self consciously brought a hand to his face. Roger wondered what Brian must’ve been imagining. What horrible scenarios he’d concocted in his head to explain Roger’s standoffishness, defensiveness. Something about Brian imagining him as some helpless victim made Roger’s skin crawl.

“It was with a friend, when we were both sixteen,” began Roger.

“You don’t have to,” said Brian under his breath.

“Fucked in the field behind my school because I liked the flowers out there.” Roger shrugged. “That’s all it was, nothing fun.”

“Oh,” Brian loosened up. “So nothing bad happened?”

“Not right then. Later on we sort of fell out, haven’t spoken since,” said Roger with a mirthless laugh. “It’s just kind of a downer, that’s all.”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to…” Brian’s words faded off. Roger accepted the apology with mutter of ‘okay’, and awkwardly turned his eyes to the test papers between him and Brian, as if he might be able to focus on them. “What was the…You don’t have to answer but what happened?”

“Aren’t you nosy,” said Roger, only half joking.

“I’m sorry, I—“ began Brian, awkwardly shifting in his bed.

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” said Roger, as convincingly as he could. He hated to lie so staying close to the truth, truth-adjacent. “It was my looks.”

“It—what?” said Brian with a scoff. “Your looks?”

“Something about me just,” Roger blinked back the tears that welled in his eyes, praying Brian hadn’t noticed them. “I think the word used was ‘repulsive’.” Roger tried to smile, tried to laugh but the way his breathing caught gave away the sadness he’d tried to cover.

“Oh, Rog,” Brian reached a hand out for his shoulder. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have asked.”

“I didn’t have to answer,” said Roger with an uneven laugh, still not quite disguising the way his throat tightened.

“Well,” Brian’s hand on his shoulder squeezed a bit with his smile, “there’s nothing ‘repulsive’ about you, Rog. I promise.”

“Thanks,” said Roger dismissively.

“I mean it,” Brian scooted closer, crinkling the papers already crushed between the tangled mess of their crossed legs. “You’re—you’re stunning, Rog. You’re impossibly handsome.”

Roger grinned, his eyes shining with tears not overwhelming enough to fall. “I’m short. My face is so feminine.”

“And so?” said Brian, his smile wide and sincere. “You’re gorgeous, who gives a shit if you look feminine, if you’re shorter, it doesn’t fucking matter. You’re…just…so beautiful.”

Roger, his eyes a little wide, his cheeks a little red, stared at Brian, waiting for him to backpedal or laugh away his flattery. But he didn’t. He kept his eyes on Roger, for a moment, for one moment before he looked down, looked at the papers between their legs and sighed.

“Roger, I don’t need help grading,” Brian leaned back a bit, with a tired sigh.

“Oh yeah?” breathed Roger.

“I just wanted to…be with you,” said Brian, drumming his fingertips on his leg. Roger’s breath caught in his throat, the shock on his face must’ve been painfully obvious judging by how Brian rubbed his temple and avoided his gaze. “I know its, it’s strange, and if you, if you’re uncomfortable I understand, I just…”

Part of Roger wanted to scream at Brian. To yell and tell him how foolish, how careless he was being. How much he was risking to tell him that, how much could be destroyed by giving into those feelings, how much he’d regret doing it when he found out the truth. But more of Roger was trembling with a perfect mix of joy and desire.

“I’m not uncomfortable,” said Roger.

Brian looked at him with suspicious eyes. “You’re not?”

“No,” Roger leaned forward, rested a hand on Brian’s cheek, “I’m not.”

Brian tried to speak, tried to add something, but Roger knew if he heard it he might overthink, might pull away. So he shut him up with a kiss. A bit clumsy over the papers and awkward angles of their legs, but needy just the same. Brian made a noise of surprise but wasted no time reciprocating. He reached out for Roger, grabbing his hip and shyly pressing a hand to his thigh while Roger carded a hand through his unruly curls and eased Brian’s mouth open just a bit more, just enough to allow him access.

Brian hummed, breathing coming a little harder already. His fingertips pressed deep into Roger’s thigh, massaging the muscle there. And inching upwards. Higher higher, higher still until—

“No, no,” stammered Roger, shooing Brian’s hands away. He hoped hoped Brian couldn’t tell in that initial touch the difference between balled up socks and a cock.

“I’m sorry,” sighed Brian, clearly overwhelmed, “I’m sorry, I got carried away—“

“It’s okay,” said Roger, hand lingering on Brian’s shoulder, trailing down his arm. “But I don’t think we should rush into that.”

“Is it me?” Brian looked as if he already knew the answer was yes.

“Of course not,” said Roger dipping lower to be sure Brian caught his eyes. “I want you, I really do. But it shouldn’t be an impromptu quickie before Tim gets back from his shift.” That was part of the truth, though very far from the whole truth.

“You want me?” said Brian, the beginnings of a cocky grin forming on his face.

“Oh, fuck off,” said Roger, trying to keep a straight face while he rolled his eyes.

Brian muttered insincere apologies until Roger cracked a smile. “But seriously,” added Brian, “I’ll wait, I don’t mind it.”

“I know it doesn’t seem like me—”

“I don’t mind, honestly.”

Roger paused for a moment or two before tugging Brian’s collar, pulling him into another kiss. A show of gratitude as much as affection. And once he had Brian thoroughly flustered, he suggested they get back to grading.

They did, for awhile, get their focus back on grading and going back and forth about the problems they were working on. But the conversation inevitably turned to each other, to sharing little tidbits of their weak moments where their feelings had been too obvious. Roger remembered once drunkenly asking Brian to break up with Chrissie as his biggest offense, he was more used to keeping himself hidden, more adept at hiding himself. Brian on the other hand, the more he remembered with Roger, seemed as if he he hadn’t bothered trying to hide it. His most obvious display being the song he’d written for Roger.

Roger remembered wondering why Brian had him sit in on so many rerecordings of the demo for White Queen. Brian remembered being unable to tell if Roger was being polite and turning him down subtly, or if he was too dense to figure it out. Roger told him he’d been far too jealous, thinking the song was for Chrissie, to notice the way Brian sang it for him.

When Roger regrettably had to go home, Brian only quietly offered to let him stay. Roger had a feeling he knew it’d be easier for him to sleep at home considering the rigamarole he’d gone through the last time. Roger pulled his jacket off the hook by Brian’s front door and felt a great relief in kissing him goodbye. Not just thinking about it, daydreaming about, fantasising about how it might feel, but doing it. Dragging Brian down by his shirt and tangling a hand in his curls. There was something freeing about it, and something equally grounding.

And he knew in the morning his stomach would turn with worry. Knew he’d panic about the future, about what he’d have to do and say, if he had the strength to pursue it at all. He knew there was a chance he’d just cut it off at the start out of terror of what may come. But for that night, for his walk home, he didn’t care.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello all, it's been awhile! Sorry this one took a bit longer but you know, life haha! Thank you for the lovely comments so far and please comment if you enjoy this chapter as well I love reading each and every one <333

“Are you going to tell him?” said Freddie, laid out across Roger’s bed.

Roger safety pinned his bindings into place and sighed. “I don’t know,” he ran an anxious hand through his hair, “I don’t know how long I can keep this up.”

It’d been a full month since Brian had asked him over, told him everything with his heart on his sleeve. And Roger couldn’t reciprocate, not fully. Couldn’t tell him the whole truth, could barely tell him half of it. Roger took a shaky breath in and out and went to his closet.

Freddie flipped over on Roger’s bed to face him. “It’s your own business.”

“Not anymore,” said Roger, as he whipped his clothes across the bar they hung from just a little too harshly.

“It still is. You never have to fuck him, you never have to let him touch you,” said Freddie. “Those aren’t requirements.”

“ _Freddie_ ,” groaned Roger as he tugged a shirt on over his head, “it’s not about sex.”

“It’s not?” said Freddie, monotone and unconvinced.

“No, it’s not.” Roger rifled through his collection of trousers for something, anything that would go with his top. “I’m keeping him at a distance. I can’t keep him there forever or he’ll leave.”

“What advice are you looking for exactly?” said Freddie. Roger held up a pair of trousers to his hips and looked for Freddie’s approval, Freddie shook his head. “It sounds like you want to tell him so do it.”

“I’m scared,” said Roger, a little frustrated that Freddie hadn’t already guessed that. “I’ve never had to do it before, everyone either watched it happen or never found out, all but you. And I didn’t even tell you.”

“Well,” huffed Freddie, “if you’re scared then you should break it off.”

“Be serious.” Roger stepped into the pair of trousers he’d pulled out after Freddie gave them a thumbs up.

“I am,” said Freddie, no hint of a smile on his face. “If this is something you feel you can’t tell him then break it off, there’s no point.”

“That’s not fair.” Roger pulled his trousers the rest of the way up and rummaged through his sock drawer, he stuffed one pair down his pants, the other he unrolled. “You can’t expect him to be alright with this out of hand that’s—”

“That’s not what I said,” said Freddie. His voice caught when the mattress dipped as Roger sat by him, tugging on his socks. “I said you should be able to tell him. I don’t know if he’ll take it well or not mind it, but if you can’t _tell_ him there’s no point staying with him.”

“Easy to say,” spat Roger. “You’ve got no idea what this sort of thing is like.”

“I’ve got some idea,” said Freddie, softly. “Better than most anyway. And you know I’m right, Roger. You don’t have to tell Brian a single thing, but you know no relationship is going to go anywhere without you letting someone else know. I’m not saying it has to be Brian or anything, but until you say something you’re stuck right here.”

Roger hated when Freddie was the voice of reason. He knew he’d gone too far in his own head if _Freddie_ was telling him to come back to reality.

“I wish this could last, I wish keeping him at this distance were sustainable.” Roger groaned and laid back on his bed, across Freddie’s legs. Freddie sat up and fiddled with his hair. “I haven’t even told him he’d not my first boy and now I have to pile on that I’m not his either—”

“Hey!” spat Freddie, more serious than Roger was used to. “Don’t say shit like that.”

“Sorry,” said Roger, his cheeks heating up from the shame of getting called on his own self-deprecation.

“If it’s too much,” said Freddie, his gentle tone returning, “don’t do it. It can wait until further down the line with Brian, or until someone new.”

“It’s not too much,” said Roger, with a sense of determination. “I just—I want him, I want to be with him, and I can’t let him fucking touch me without a big long speech about what he’ll find and at the end of it he turn it all down. It’s not fucking fair.”

“No, darling,” said Freddie with a lock of Roger’s hair around his finger, “it’s not fair. In an ideal world you wouldn’t have to preface yourself with anything.”

“In an ideal world I would just have a cock,” laughed Roger.

“Nothing wrong with not having one,” said Freddie quietly. “Nothing wrong with you.”

Roger smiled weakly at Freddie and let his eyes slip closed for a moment, focused on the feeling of Freddie’s nails lightly scratching his scalp.

“Maybe I’ll tell him that he’s not my first bloke tonight,” said Roger, quiet and calmed. “See how he takes that first.”

“I’m sure he’ll take it well,” said Freddie. “I’m sure he’ll take all of it well.”

“What if I just let him find out?” said Roger with a laugh.

“How’s that?”

“I mean next time he’s all over me what if I just,” Roger gestured vaguely in the air, “let it happen.”

“Oh god,” laughed Freddie, “you better not be serious. What a terrible idea.”

“Saves me a lot of issue,” sighed Roger.

“You can’t tell him this via practical experience. If you blindside the poor man he’s going to say something he doesn’t mean, do something he’ll wish he didn’t, it’s not fair on him,” said Freddie.

“But it’s so much easier on me,” Roger rubbed his eyes.

“Don’t panic about all this too much,” Freddie patted his arm, “being with Brian is supposed to be fun.”

“It still is,” said Roger, smiling up at Freddie. And it was. He loved being with Brian, it felt so natural and comfortable. Welcoming in a way he’d never had before not with anyone. And it hurt, it stung that he knew Brian didn’t feel the same. Knew Brian was on edge and uneasy. Doing his best to mind the boundaries Roger laid out and never questioning them though Roger knew it couldn’t make sense to him, knew he’d left Brian to stew and speculate over his own worth, his own self image all because he couldn’t tell him. “Fun for me anyway.”

~~~

“Thank you for not yelling at me about ordering meat,” said Roger on his and Brian’s walk back from the cheap little restaurant Brian invited him out to. Cheap by more grown adults standards, lavish by their own.

“You do eat too much of it,” said Brian. He reached for Roger’s hand, Roger threaded his fingers through Brian’s. Roger remembered doing this with the boys back in Truro, how it didn’t matter who saw. With Brian they let go of each other if they spotted someone out walking as well. Roger knew that meant he looked how he wanted to, everyone saw him how he wanted to, but he hated feeling that nervous tension in Brian’s grip.

“You’ve known me long enough to know you’ll never convert me,” said Roger.

“Maybe when your cardiologist hands you your numbered days you’ll join me,” said Brian.

“I might sooner die than live without meat,” said Roger, mostly to get under Brian’s skin. Brian rolled his eyes and Roger grinned. “So where’re we going?”

“Back to mine I thought?” said Brian as they turned a corner.

“I don’t think—I don’t think I’ll want to tonight,” said Roger. A well used sentence that Roger brought out at the end of all of their dates.

“I know,” said Brian, looking over at him with a half smile.

“Sorry,” said Roger.

“Don’t be,” said Brian. And Roger knew he meant it, but he also knew Brian would soon need a better excuse than ‘I don’t want to’. There was just no way to convince Brian, beyond a doubt, that it wasn’t his fault. He couldn’t promise Brian he wanted him so bad it kept him up at night while simultaneously rejecting every advance he had almost entirely stopped making.

He remembered his promise to Freddie, to tell Brian some more of the truth. The idea of the entire truth coming out right then and there was too much to consider, too overwhelming, but some of it ought to. Brian deserved at least a snippet of it.

“Bri, can I tell you something?” mumbled Roger, almost wishing he didn’t hear it.

Brian turned to him, a grin faded to worry. “Sure—is something the matter?”

“No,” laughed Roger, mostly to calm himself rather than Brian, “everything’s fine.”

“Don’t leave me in suspense,” teased Brian as he pulled his house keys from his pocket and led them up the stairs to his flat. When Roger said nothing, Brian stopped on the second to last step and turned to look back at Roger. “You alright?”

“Fine, just fine,” Roger slipped his right hand out of Brian’s and buried it deep in his jacket pocket, mirroring his left. “Let’s just get inside.”

“Okay.” Brian’s newly-freed hand hung awkwardly between them, still halfheartedly reaching out for Roger for a moment or two before he turned his attention to unlocking his door. Brian shed his jacket and offered the same for Roger who turned him down and hurried straight to Brian’s bedroom. His stomach turned, his skin got clammy, his heart pounded and Brian could see it all. “Rog, you’re starting to worry me.”

“Sorry,” said Roger with an anxious laugh. Brian shut his door and offered his desk chair for Roger to sit in, Roger sat on the edge of his bed, hands still deep in his pockets, clutching the lining fabric. “It’s not any big deal.”

“Then tell me.” Brian sat next to him, offering as much space between them as he could and put a hand in the space between them.

“I,” Roger’s nervously bouncing leg had the floors creaking rhythmically, “I’ve been with guys before.” Roger worked up the nerve to look Brian in the eyes. “Lots of them actually.”

“Oh.” Brian’s expression was blank. Shifting comfortably into confused. “Okay.”

“Is that okay?”

Brian stifled a laugh and started a few words without ever completing them, stammering with a wide smile across his face. “Did you think I thought you were a virgin or something?”

“No,” said Roger, loosening up, pulling his sweaty hands from his pockets, “but I didn’t know if you’d mind. ”

“I don’t mind, I’m a bit surprised if I’m honest,” Brian ran a hand through Roger’s hair, “but I don’t mind.”

Roger smiled, weak and fleeting, before leaning over to kiss him, to thank him almost. He tugged at Brian’s messy curls, humming, desperate to get a little closer. Brian opened his mouth to Roger’s prodding tongue, pliant and submissive as he always was, ready to take anything Roger wanted to give him. He rested his free hand on his thigh, let his fingertips really feel the muscle there.

Brian’s hand reached for him, ran across his lower back, hooked on his hip. Roger felt a shock of anxiety run up his spine thinking of exactly how far away his fingertips were from his bandages. When Brian’s hand travelled up by some undetectable amount, Roger flinched, arched out of his touch and away from Brian.

“Sorry,” said Brian, patient but frustration was clear on his face. “I can wait.”

Roger sighed, no words of comfort coming to mind. No way to communicate to Brian that he was just as frustrated, that he was dying to be with him, to go further than lingering touches and enthusiastic kisses. Brian looked at him with such defeat and self consciousness Roger could’ve confessed it all right there just to assure him there was nothing, not one single thing wrong with him. But he couldn’t, not yet, couldn’t fathom blurting that all out. So he did the next best thing.

“You know,” said Roger, inching his hand up Brian’s thigh. “it’s been awhile but,” a little higher still, “I’ve always been good at sucking cock.”

“Oh?” said Brian, his voice coming out as a squeak. Roger smirked and nodded. He pressed his lips to Brian’s sharp jaw and dragged his tongue down his neck, inching his hand higher and higher.

“I’d be willing to demonstrate.” Brian shuddered when Roger’s knuckles grazed over his cock, just barely touching the fabric covering it. Roger reached for his belt and Brian was quick, very quick to unbuckle it for him, to unbutton and unzip his trousers for him in a desperate hurry.

“We’ve got time,” said Roger with a laugh. Brian seemed too in shock to respond. He watched Roger’s hand as it freed his cock, as Roger stroked him, once or twice to get a feel for it. It’d been ages since he’d felt that familiar weight, that soft searing heat. Brian moaned with a breathy lilt when Roger twisted his wrist how he remembered the boys liking back in Truro. Brian reached for him, for his hips for his waist, so Roger sank to his knees, avoiding his touch and shuffling between his legs.

It was a distant closeness. Brian’s hand through his hair, his legs pressed to Roger’s body. Close but not. Together, intimate, but worlds apart. Vulnerable but tightly guarded. One hand around his cock, the other clinging to his hips, pulling him in, but not letting Brian touch him below the neck. A show of love, of desire, of need, without having to get undressed.

Roger circled his tongue around Brian’s head and watched him grit his teeth, trying and failing to keep his composure. It had been years since he sucked a cock but it came back to him. The way he covered his teeth and hollowed his cheeks was equal parts intuition and muscle memory. He’d done it plenty when he was younger, a way to pass the time to try and feel something, to feel closer to his own masculinity as well as the friends he kept his secrets from. He was used to sucking cock for his own need to fit in, to be closer to the people he wanted to emulate, to rebel against something he couldn’t ever put his finger on. But he’d never done it for someone, not really. Not in the soft, caring way he did for Brian right there in his bedroom. His short hair, his new clothes, his bound chest, the way Brian moaned _Roger_. It all felt more right than it ever did when he was a teenager, than it did when he was still fucking around with women.

Brian warned him he was close, so Roger got him as deep as he could. He couldn’t keep anyone so deep for very long, but Brian came down his throat almost instantly. With a cry of his name, a drawn out whimper, and a loving hand combing through his hair.

“You’re really good at that,” panted Brian.

“Thanks,” said Roger, his voice hoarse. He ran the flat of his tongue up Brian’s cock one last time, just to watch him shudder. Roger sat up a bit, stretched and let Brian lean down to kiss him. He didn’t hesitate in tasting himself in Roger’s mouth. Roger moaned then, a soft, quiet moan he couldn’t suppress.

“Your turn,” hummed Brian.

“What?” breathed Roger.

“I’m not gonna be nearly as good as you but I,” Brian’s hand trailed down Roger’s side, “can try.”

The way Brian looked at him made it fairly self evident that he didn’t know his fingertips weren’t pressing into the muscles of his back but into tightly wound bandages. But Roger knew. And Roger knew that hand was headed for even more surprises if it went any further. He flopped out of Brian’s touch and landed on his back, roughly, hitting his head on the wood flooring.

“Oh—fuck are you okay,” sputtered Brian, awkwardly tucking his cock back into his pants before reaching a hand out for him. Roger propped himself up but didn’t take his hand. Brian slowly brought his hand back and bit his cheek. “Is it me, Rog? I mean is—is there something about me that just…You’ll suck me off but I can’t—hordes of strange women can but I can’t—and I thought—it made sense that you wanted to wait but why—why does this not count—”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” offered Roger, slowly climbing to his feet. “I’m sorry, I...” he cautiously sat back down by Brian on the forgiving mattress and rubbed the sore spots in his knees, “I know it seems hypocritical, I know it’s frustrating, I know I’ve made you wait far too long—”

“It’s not that,” said Brian, bumping his shoulder against Roger’s. “I’ll wait even longer I just…wish I knew why, or knew the rules.”

“I know,” sighed Roger. “I’m sorry but the best I can give you ’s that I’m not ready for it.”

“That’s all?” said Brian. “Swear it’s nothing to do with me, or my looks, or anything. You don’t secretly hate me, it’s just not time?”

“Of course,” Roger put a hand on his thigh, “I wouldn’t be sitting here still begging your forgiveness if I didn’t want you, because _I do_ , just…not yet.”

“Okay,” said Brian, convinced but not pleased, “okay.”

So much of Roger wished it weren’t an issue, wish he could just pin Brian to his squeaky mattress and ride him until one of them gave out. He sounded so good, moaned so beautifully with his cock in Roger’s mouth, he just wanted to hear that again, to feel it for himself. The aching, frustrating need in the pit of his stomach mocked him. A need that hadn’t been satisfied in ages, gnawing at him and reminding him it’d never go away. That no one would ever want to take it from him, not unless he grew is hair out and dug up the memory of the name his mother gave him.

He rested his head on Brian’s shoulder, tired, desperate, longing to touch him longing to have him and totally unable to get any closer than a hand threaded with his own.

~~~

“Sounds _shit!”_ screamed Roger into his drum mic.

“Oh fuck off,” grumbled Brian.

“Slow, dragging, fucking _shit!”_ repeated Roger.

“Stop being a fucking child,” spat Brian in a low voice.

“Stop being a shit guitarist,” replied Roger.

“Boys, boys,” said Freddie into their headphones from his spot in the booth, “take it down a bit.”

“Y’know I thought with you two lovebirds fucking nightly we’d argue less in the studio,” said John, coming to the end of his rope. Roger could tell by the comment. Brian had been the one to tell him about their relationship, only a couple weeks back after he and Roger had nearly a month behind them already. John was young, awkward, and so terrified of putting his foot in his mouth that he tended to say nothing at all about them.

“If only,” murmured Brian.

“What?” laughed John, smile wide and eager. “Are you not fucking is that why you’ve both been so horrible in the studio?”

“Why don’t we take a break,” said Freddie into their headphones.

“It’s been almost two months,” added John with a laugh.

“I’d _love_ one,” said Roger, drowning out his words.

“Me too,” groaned Brian as he set his guitar down and hurried to swing the recording booth door open. Roger let him go, it wouldn’t be a break if he spent it with Brian.

Though he hadn’t thought their fighting came from anything other than creative differences, John probably had a point. There was probably a reason they ran into more arguments over music they used to agree on . Brian insisted it was fine, that he’d wait as long as Roger needed. And Roger knew he would. But with no real explanation as to why, Roger knew it must be hard. Knew he must’ve been pulling on the strings over all of Brian’s insecurities, knew Brian had to work twice as hard to try and keep them from bothering him. And he knew it was failing. The way Brian talked about his looks, his playing, his everything, it was all going downhill the longer Roger refused to let him touch him. And the blowjob, something that was meant to be an olive branch, an offering and a promise that he was desirable and desperately wanted by Roger, seemed only to mock Brian.

Talking it over with Freddie, nights earlier, had ended similarly to their last conversation. He didn’t owe Brian sex, but if he wanted to give it to him he owed him the truth. That it was Brian’s own business if he was going to let his insecurities overtake him all because of some physical distance, that Roger didn’t have to compromise anything to make him feel better. Roger knew, on paper, those were all true. But he had the cure to Brian’s ills, just telling him the fucking truth, and he wasn’t giving it to him. He was letting him suffer for it. Maybe cutting him loose would be best, ending his suffering and his own anxiety without ever having to bear himself. The idea of losing Brian made his stomach turn, but this couldn’t keep up, couldn’t watch Brian’s self image deteriorate and couldn’t tell him why the idea of Brian’s hands on him was so abhorrent.

“What’s the look for?” said John. He leant his bass against the wall and eyed him with concern.

“Look?” said Roger, his patience left him hours ago.

“You look upset,” said John.

“I am,” said Roger. “I need…I need a fag or coffee or—air, something.” He stood from his drum stool and meandered around the kit.

His foot caught the stand for his ride. Lucky for his ride cymbal, it was weighted down to avoid any toppling while Roger played. Unlucky for Roger, it was weighted down and when his foot collided with the edge it didn’t budge and sent him straight towards the ground. Well it would’ve had John not caught him.

He heard the beginnings of John’s laughter and the following teasing remarks about being clumsy, to try and lighten the mood. But that laughter died in his throat, and the comments he might’ve made never came out as his hand pressed uncomfortably into Roger’s chest, holding him up while he got his feet back under him. Roger moved as fast as he could to get upright, to get John off of him, but he knew by the look on John’s face, the damage was done, it was too late.

“I,” said John, avoiding Roger’s eyes, “I need the loo.”

“Wait—wait, John—“ began Roger.

“It’s fine—it’s—I need the loo,” said John, hurrying out of Roger’s panicked grip on his sleeve and out the door without another word.

Roger could feel the anxiety in his throat, could feel the tears in his eyes, the tension in every muscle. He steadied himself on John’s stool with a sweaty hand and wondered what he was doing. If he’d gone to the loo to gather his thoughts or if he was calling everyone they knew to tell them the news. Maybe someone caught him, wandering to the loo in a terrified trance, and John told them. Told one of the workers at the studio, one of their producers, fuck he could event tell Brian. God, what if Brian found out through a horror-story retelling from John while he got sick in the loo thinking about the idea of Roger.

“Fuck,” muttered Roger.

“Fuck what?” replied Freddie. Roger hadn’t noticed him walk in and jumped when he heard a reply. “Didn’t mean to startle you darling but—”

“I think…I need to go home.”

“We _all_ do, that’s what I came in to tell you,” sighed Freddie. “Just told Brian I think we ought to head out so—”

“No I—John just found out,” said Roger. “At least I think so anyway.”

“What?” said Freddie with a half smile, as if Roger was somehow overreacting.

“He—he felt,” said Roger with a hand across his turning stomach. “I fell and he caught me—and he ran out.”

“Oh,” said Freddie. Roger was glad to see a bit of concern spread across his face. “Well, what’s done is done—”

“ _Freddie_ ,” whined Roger, more childish and pathetic than he’d ever heard himself.

“Look,” Freddie wrapped a hand around his wrist, “it can’t be undone. But I’m forcing everyone to go home, we’re all tired and cross with each other. You go home with Brian and make up for being so rude to each other all night, I’ll go home with John see what he thinks happened, see if this is even an issue.”

“And if it is?” spat Roger.

“If he knows then he knows. It’s John, he doesn’t care, I doubt he’ll ever mention it again,” said Freddie. “C’mon, pack up, it’s been a long night for all of us.”

Roger took a deep breath as Freddie made his way out, he heard him demand a ride home with John somewhere down the hall as he packed up Brian’s guitar for him. Both as a way to begin his apology to Brian and to get him out of the recording booth and out of the studio without seeing John again.

~~~

“It was dragging,” said Roger in the car. His nerves eased a bit once he knew John couldn’t stumble upon Brian and let him know, once he knew Freddie was all over it, containing it and smothering it.

“Here we go,” groaned Brian.

“ _But_ , I was a tit and I’m sorry,” said Roger. Brian stopped at the yellow light and smiled at him.

“You never apologise first,” said Brian with a grin.

“I’m growing,” said Roger as he leaned over the console between them to sloppily kiss Brian before the light changed back.

“I’m sorry too,” said Brian when he pulled away. “Don’t know why we were at each other’s throats tonight.”

“Stress?” offered Roger as if they both weren’t painfully aware of the issue. Of the enormous elephant in the room that only Roger knew the name of, that they both refused to acknowledge for different reasons each. “I could use a drink.”

“First good idea you’ve had all night.”

They considered a pub and then considered, a bit harder, their bank balances before driving back to Brian’s and digging out the bottle of Southern Comfort Roger’d brought over weeks ago. He got them all the ice from the freezer, all four or five cubes they had left, and asked Roger to pick a record out while he poured their glasses and closed his door. Tim got back late from his classes, from his dates, and the one or two times he’d walked in on them wrapped around each other in the living room had been traumatising for all involved parties. They stuck to Brian’s room ever since. Roger didn’t mind, Brian kept the better speakers in his room anyway.

Brian sat in his desk chair and put his feet up on his bed. Roger hopped up next to his feet, pressed his back to the wall and shimmied under Brian’s legs, finding that one comfortable spot of Brian’s tired old mattress and took another gulp of his whiskey.

“Are we finishing these too fast?” said Brian as he held his glass up to the light to measure how much he’d had.

Roger shrugged. “Stressful night, I think we’ve earned it.”

“It was frustrating but I wouldn’t say stressful,” said Brian.

“You want to argue about that too?” said Roger with a chuckle. Brian laughed and shook his head.

He lolled his head along the wall to look over at Brian, to watch the way his fingers held his drink, the way his lips welcomed the glass so easily. The way his nose cast such a precise shadow across his cheek. Roger remembered Freddie saying something about lighting like that, something about how it forced the viewer to see the face for what it was, no hidden wrinkles or disguised features. And it was beautiful, soft, warm in a way Roger knew he’d never been.

“What is it?” said Brian. “Something on my face?”

“No,” said Roger, taking another sip, “just fancy you.”

Brian fought a grin and blushed. “Even with this nose?”

“Especially,” said Roger. He rested a hand on Brian’s leg resting in his lap. “Especially with that nose.” He grinned as the whiskey warmed him up. “D’you fancy me?”

“Not a thing I’d change,” said Brian, quiet but genuine.

“I bet there will be,” said Roger.

“Oh yeah, like what?” said Brian, he crossed his legs, hoping to get Roger to absentmindedly scratch his other leg. Roger did.

“Dunno,” said Roger. “Maybe my mum will call your hair ugly and you’ll ditch me for someone taller.”

“You want me to meet your mum?” said Brian. Roger, his inhibitions lowered just an ounce, nodded against the wall. “I want you to meet mine too. Properly, not just in passing this time.”

“Hold off on that ’til you see me naked,” laughed Roger. “You’ve got to be sure you don’t hate it before you go off showing me to the folks.”

Brian giggled, always such a lightweight with whiskey. “Did seeing mine make you self-conscious?”

“Hell yeah it did,” said Roger, laughing out the truth. Brian blushed, a bright pink, his smile showing no signs of fading.

“I’m sure you’re just fine,” Brian sucked his teeth as the whiskey burned his throat.

“We’ll see,” said Roger with shrug and a quick gulp of too much whiskey. He reached a hand out towards him lazily. “Come sit with me.”

Brian obliged without a word. He nestled in next to Roger, his hands in his lap, wrapped around his drink, Roger in a similar position, both their whiskeys down to drops by now. Brian rested his shoulder on Roger, pressed his thigh against Roger’s. Anything to get close to him without crossing any of Roger’s seemingly arbitrary and mostly unpredictable barriers.

How could it be that John knew before Brian. If he ever knew that he’d be crushed. Crushed that Roger’d hid something so weighty for so long, crushed that he was the last to know, crushed that Roger didn’t trust him. But he did trust him. With everything else in his life he’d trust Brian blindly, always had since the day he met him and put his faith in his career in Brian’s hands. Logically it seemed silly to be so terrified to tell him. Of course trusting him with his secret, trusting him not to tell was different than trusting him to see past it, to not let it ruin their relationship. He knew if Brian couldn’t move past it, it was best to know before they got so lost in each other that their breakup would be earth shattering. But he was happy then. Right then next to Brian, hoping their empty whiskey glasses would somehow refill themselves, listening to the record skipping on Brian’s turntable, wondering if the needle would make it out of the loop. Why ruin that with himself.

“Brian,” said Roger, turning to face him.

“Mm?” said Brian, turning as well.

Roger said nothing but moved closer, close enough to kiss him. He loved that satisfied, almost relieved hum Brian often let out when Roger kissed him. As if he’d never done it before, as if he’d been waiting for it all his life. He fumbled to put his glass on Brian’s desk and fumbled to do the same with Brian’s before mashing their lips together again. He pressed his tongue against Brian’s, let his hand run across Brian’s flat stomach and curl around his hip.

And he reached down, pulled Brian’s leg across his own, ran his hand up Brian’s inner thigh, grazing over his cock before clinging to his hip again, savouring each little whine from Brian.

“What’re you doing?” mumbled Brian against Roger’s lips.

“What d’you think?” laughed Roger before shutting him up with a kiss. Brian fell back then. Instantly pliant in Roger’s hands, desperate to get under him. Roger wondered if he was too drunk to do this, too drunk to go through with it, too drunk to be able to explain it all how he wanted Brian to hear it. But the more Brian pawed at him, pulled him on top of him, the less Roger cared if he was eloquent or gentle with the truth. He huffed and moaned as Roger laid him down and found his way between Brian’s legs. Brian held onto his shoulders tight while Roger moved his hips pointlessly against Brian’s hardening cock, his tongue hopefully distracting him from the strange sensation of balled up socks pressing against him.

“Fuck, finally,” whispered Brian.

“We’ve waited long enough,” breathed Roger as he mouthed down Brian’s jaw.

“I want you to tear me in two,” said Brian in Roger’s ear. Roger’s stomach dropped, the idea intoxicating and one of his more prominent fantasies, while at the same time his whiskey addled, desperately horny mind to realised he couldn’t. He had no way to fill Brian the way he was constantly hinting he wanted, no way to satisfy the most prominent plea Brian had for him.

“Oh god,” said Roger, panic starting to set in as it hit him how far down the road he’d gone. Backing out now would require an explanation that was better than ‘I don’t feel like it still’. Brian deserved something more than a vague and noncommittal muttering of ‘not in the mood’ after this. Roger wasn’t sure if it was the whiskey or the anxiety rushing to his head as it slowly dawned on him that, either way, Brian would find out before the end of the night. And he could either lean in to the remaining fun they might have or back out. Roger, drunk and thinking more from the pit in his stomach, knew which he’d rather do.

“Oh god,” repeated Brian. He reached between them and worked his shirt open, something Roger absently realised he was probably supposed to do for him.

“I—can you be in charge?” said Roger, a little more shy. “Just this once.”

Brian paused his frantic work on his shirt and reached up to comb a hand through Roger’s hair. “Whatever you want.”

Roger shook when he fell on the bed next to Brian. His fingertips trembled against Brian’s face and neck as he reached up to touch him. Brian slotted a leg between Roger’s and rucked his shirt up just a bit before Roger stopped him, held down the fabric of his top just an inch or so before his bandages would be exposed.

“I’m nervous too,” said Brian with an awkward laugh, his eyes focused on the way Roger’s hand’s shook and moved unevenly at the hem of his shirt. “Is tonight not the night?”

“It is,” said Roger, his words breathy from the way he kept holding his breath and gulping down more air in quick bursts. Brian covered him, his whole lanky body pressing to Roger’s, his mouth pressing lazy kisses just under his jaw, warming him and holding him, grounding him. Roger barely noticed when Brian got his belt unbuckled. When his fingers came across Roger’s socks and laughed under his breath as he threw them on his floor.

He moved his hand back to Roger, grazed his calloused fingertips across his stomach, stretched the waistband of his pants to fit his hand. Roger wondered if maybe he should stop him, warn him. But his whiskey logged mind didn’t work quite as fast as Brian’s hand. He dipped into Roger’s waistband and pressed his fingers against him. Roger’s breath hitched, and Brian’s mouth stopped moving against Roger’s neck.

He pulled away, sat up enough to look at Roger, his face full of confusion as his fingers prodded and pressed aimlessly against Roger. Roger knew his own face must been either blank or terror-stricken, waiting for Brian to do something, to say something, to ask something.

Brian didn’t, or maybe he couldn’t. He kept moving his fingers, in small circles that made Roger’s cheeks heat up, that made him bite back moans and quiet himself. Roger knew he wasn’t doing it for Roger’s sake, to make him feel good, he was trying to make sense of it. Roger didn’t want to distract him until he had. His hand moved down, just a bit, just enough to slide a cautious, slow finger in. Slow enough that Roger could’ve gotten up and left in the time it took to do it. His movements so deliberate and careful, as if Roger might shatter. Roger knew he was bright red, embarrassed by whatever Brian thought of him, embarrassed by what Brian felt, but despite all that, eager for more.

“Ah,” sighed Roger, half pain half pleasure.

“Sorry,” muttered Brian, hurrying to pull out, quick to sit up. “Fuck—sorry—I—oh god—” Brian stood and hurried to his desk. He poured himself too much whiskey and drank it all in a few panicked gulps.

Roger buttoned his trousers, buckled them too, and sat up. “You alright?”

“Fine,” said Brian as he refilled his glass.

“Please—can you hold off on that for a second,” said Roger. He had no interest in trying to explain something so intricate to someone entirely shitfaced. Though judging by the way his head spun when he sat up, they might’ve already passed a point of no return.

“I—“ Brian turned to Roger, his knuckles white around his drink, his hands trembling. He wiped the sweat from his forehead, “I—Roger I—where is it?”

“Not there,” said Roger, quiet and timid. Brian scoffed and nodded and took another sip. Well almost took another sip before remembering Roger’s request and setting the drink down.

“I…When were you gonna tell me?” said Brian, he gripped the back of his desk chair for stability.

“I didn’t know how to,” said Roger. “But you know now—”

“Yeah, fuckin’ trial by fire,” snapped Brian.

“Look,” spat Roger, getting a little defensive, “either way you know now.” Roger shifted his feet across the floor just a bit, stretched them out in front of him, and wrapped his arms self consciously around his middle. “So does it matter to you?”

“What?” said Brian, his words slurring.

“Does it matter,” said Roger a bit louder, a bit more frustrated.

“How should I know!” screamed Brian. “I—I had no idea, I’ve never—I don’t—I have no idea. I—I wasn’t expecting—I’ve got no idea if this matters to me, I’ve never once considered it, Rog—how could you spring something so big—you should’ve told me—I don’t know! I don’t know!” Brian took a deep breath, quieted his stammering and looked at Roger. Trying to look past Roger’s appearance now, trying to imagine how he was before. Roger might’ve told him to stop, but Brian did it himself with a subtle shake of his head and averted eyes as he massaged his temples. “I can’t do this drunk, I can’t think about this drunk.”

“You could fuck me drunk but not—”

“Roger, this is not the same,” spat Brian.

Roger jumped up, still a little uneasy on his feet from the shock, from the whiskey. “Just tell me if you still want me, why is that so fucking hard?!”

“This is a lot to take in!” said Brian, standing a little taller, a little more defensive himself.

“Then—then don’t!”

“Excuse me?”

“Then don’t take any of it in if it’s so fucking complex and overwhelming and disgusting just ignore it—”

“I never said disgusting—”

“I don’t care!” Roger picked his shoes up off the floor and barreled by Brian, yanking his door open and hurrying to the front door in his socks.

“Fuck are you going?!” Brian hurried behind him. “It’s late—”

“I don’t care!” screamed Roger. “And neither should you!”

“I do care—”

“Not enough!” Roger opened the door and let it slam against the wall. Roger hurried down the steps and heard Brian call his name a few times, the whiskey starting to catch up to his slurring words. “Leave me the fuck alone, just leave me the fuck alone!” called Roger in his general direction before sprinting around the corner and out of Brian’s line of sight.

~~~

Roger walked home, a little drunk, lump in throat from unfallen tears. Maybe Freddie was right in saying Roger should’ve told him before he was brought face to face with the whole…ordeal. Should’ve eased him into it. Maybe he would’ve taken it a little better. But Roger figured, if Brian couldn’t handle being thrust into the deep end of a body that Roger had to deal with every fucking day of his life then fuck him. Fuck him. He grit his teeth and stayed on that thought, forcibly shifted his focus away from sadness and regret and disgust with himself, focused it on telling himself it was better this way. Better to be without him if he couldn’t understand.

He steeled himself with that sentiment on his cold walk home. Finding comfort in the idea of, for once, being on the same side as his body. Wanting someone to be kind to him for it rather than berate him the way he normally did to himself.

He shoved his keys in the lock and swung his door open. He hung his coat up and dropped his keys in the little decorative bowl Freddie made in a pottery class. Despite being in art school they both knew it looked like shit.

“Evening!” said Freddie from the couch, curled up with tea watching that horrible soap opera he loved so much.

“How was your night?” said Freddie.

“Great,” said Roger quickly. He scanned the telly, trying to decipher if he’d already seen the episode playing, having acquired a morbid curiosity for it with Freddie constantly screening it in their living room. He rucked his shirt up enough to find the bottom safety pin that often lingered around his waist and began unwinding. He was a little too tipsy and impatient to do it properly. So rushed that he tangled himself up. Half bound, half knotted around his waist.

“Are you drunk?”

“A little,” muttered Roger, he rubbed his face harshly.

“Brian let you walk home drunk?” said Freddie, offended on Roger’s behalf, sputtering for words.

“He didn’t _let_ me do anything,” spat Roger. “For all he cares, I wandered into traffic.”

“That doesn’t sound like Brian,” Freddie sat up and rested his tea on the coffee table.

Roger ignored him and made for the kitchen, looking for something to drink, regretting leaving his Southern Comfort at Brian’s. He heard Freddie pad his way in and tried to pretend he hadn’t, tried to pretend nothing was wrong. It’d been so much easier on the walk home to be blasé and uncaring. To feel no sadness, shame, embarrassment around the night, around Brian. So much easier in the cold whipping winds of the streets outside.

“Rog?” said Freddie quietly.

Roger turned to Freddie and gripped the countertops he leaned against. The warmth of the kitchen, the sympathetic look in Freddie’s eye, made it impossible to ignore it. To pretend he was above what happen, to pretend it hadn’t effected him. But it had, and his brave face cracked as tears welled in his eyes. Brian knew, saw him for what he was, and didn’t like it. Maybe no one ever would.

“He doesn’t want me,” said Roger, under his breath, his voice strained.

“What d’you mean?” said Freddie. But those were the only words Roger could eek out before the tears overwhelmed him. Freddie held him through his incomplete starts and ends of thoughts and words, too much whiskey and emotion to work out what he wanted to say but Freddie understood him. And he poured him some of the tea he’d made for himself and sat them at their little table in the kitchen, just big enough for two. He scrounged around looking for food to offer him but Roger stopped him, in no mood to eat, barely able to sip his tea.

He walked Freddie through it. Starting at the whiskey and ending at his walk home. Freddie kept his need for clarification to a minimum, and Roger kept his descriptions vague. All he really needed to know was that he’d told Brian without words, through touch, and stormed out less than five minutes later. Roger wiped the few lingering tears of his cheek away, rough and annoyed. He’d done enough of this type of crying in Truro, he didn’t need anymore of it, thought he’d put it all behind him.

“I guess it’s it done, y’know for, for us,” said Roger, his hand lazily stirred his tea.

“Don’t give in just yet,” said Freddie. He reached a hand out across the table to squeeze Roger’s wrist. “This wasn’t the best means of…this—”

“I know,” groaned Roger. “I know, I shouldn’t’ve been drunk, I should’ve told him long before we tried anything. I know I took him by surprise I just…” he rubbed his temple, “I thought he’d be fine with it.”

“He might’ve been if he weren’t so…” Freddie waved his hand, “well _you know_.”

“Too late now.”

“Roger, it’s _Brian_. I doubt he’d even heard of people like you, I’m sure he’s at his flat all turned around and confused—and of course drunk,” chided Freddie. “But I’m sure he’s not angry. Give him some time, he’ll come around.”

“And if he doesn’t?”

“Then he doesn’t,” shrugged Freddie. “This will’ve been good practice on what not to do and your friendship will heal, it’s much older than this romance.”

“You say it like it’s no big deal,” Roger’s voice shook.

“I don’t mean to,” Freddie shifted closer, “I know it’s painful right now but it’s just this very stressful night. Got you both all worked up, but it won’t stay like this.”

“You know that?”

“I do,” said Freddie, full of unearned confidence that Roger took great comfort in. He silently stirred his tea, letting the clink of the spoon fill the silence for them while he focused on the way Freddie’s thumb brushed over his wrist so gently, so caring.

“Oh,” Roger cleared his throat, “did you talk to John?” Freddie nodded with pursed lips. “God—what did he say?”

“Well, cat’s definitely out of the bag,” said Freddie.

“Shit,” groaned Roger.

“But the good news is, it’s been out of the bag for a few years now,” said Freddie. Roger cocked his head. “Apparently, long time ago, he saw you getting changed for a show by mistake. Said you were all,” Freddie mimed Roger’s bandages the way he always did, with quick theatrical pats to his chest, “and sort of kept noticing things.”

“That long?” said Roger. He remembered years back to the one or two shows he had to change on site for. One show he’d changed painstakingly in his van, the other he’d gone to the rehearsal room of the university they were playing. Around the time they hadn’t yet had plans for an album secured in place. “He never said anything.”

“When I tried to mention it to him in the car he just kept saying it wasn’t his business.”

“Then why was he so strange after he—well, after I fell on him?” said Roger.

“Honestly Rog, if I got a handful I wouldn’t be too keen on hanging around either,” laughed Freddie.

“Oh, fuck off,” said Roger as he fought a smile.

“He did say you’ve ‘given yourself away’ a lot,” said Freddie.

“I have?” Roger swore he was careful enough that he could count the incidents were someone might’ve found out on one hand. At least he thought.

“He says he thinks he’s the only one to notice, probably because for awhile he was the only one to know, but he says he doesn’t like to linger on them,” said Freddie. “Guess that’s why he’s so skittish.”

“Did he, I mean did he name anything that I’ve done or, that I do?” said Roger.

“No,” Freddie added about a pound of extra sugar to his tea, “he really didn’t want to talk about it. He was looking at me like I wasn’t meant to know, like he shouldn’t’ve even said he knew.”

“Well,” Roger sighed, “he took it better than Brian.”

“We’ll see, the jury’s out until he sobers up and has a chance to chew on it,” said Freddie.

“I think we have our answer, Fred,” Roger stood and stretched, his bandages still half-wound and uneven around his hips, “but thank you. For John, for the tea, for everything.”

Freddie stood with him and hurried around their table for a hug that Roger leaned into. Normally hugs were kept light and loose to avoid his chest, but at this point with Freddie he didn’t mind that Freddie was squeezing the air out of him or that he was unbound, he just enjoyed his gentle but tight hold and his little hums of ‘I love you’ and ‘sleep well’ as they pulled apart.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! I know it's been a bit of time but we're all living in weird times aren't we haha! The days just fly by and before you know it a weeks gone! Anyway here's the newest chapter, I adore the comments being left, especially on a story so near and dear to my heart so thank you for commenting and please comment again if you like this chapter !! <333

Freddie said he ought to give Brian some space to figure it out, to sort it through in his own head. Space to think the wrong way, to form the wrong opinions and to correct himself, to bring himself back to the more rational thought he was known for. He promised Roger that even if that time left alone meant he didn’t find his way back to Roger’s side as his boyfriend, he’d be back with a clear view an acceptance of Roger as a person.

Roger made some half-impassioned argument that Brian shouldn’t need this time. That John and Freddie had taken it so well so quickly with no need to recover or ‘think’. Freddie was quick to remind him that neither he nor John were in a relationship with him, and neither he nor John had given Brian very important, significant information via a drunken grope followed by an argument that was mostly screams.

The morning after, once he’d sobered up and let the whole terrible thing sink in, he’d been tempted to call Brian, to beg and plead for his thoughts. Freddie stopped him, and kept stopping him for a day or two after the fact. Roger knew he was right, knew Brian wouldn’t come around faster with Roger phoning him and pestering him for the latest update on his emotions. But he’d like to know. Really like to know.

Roger leaned most of his weight on the trolley as he pushed it into the supermarket and remembered the last time he’d been in. A week or so ago with Brian. Scrounging together change and a few stray pound coins at the register for the makings of a meager dinner. But dinner for the two of them. Roger’s eyes were on the list Freddie gave him but he couldn’t read any of it, too lost in his own head. Wondering if he’d ever be back there with Brian, doing the same thing at the same pace, but with Brian’s hand occasionally sneaking into his.

He bought what they could afford, skipping a few things when he knew Freddie would’ve forgot he even asked for it. He checked the list one last time for missing necessities, and grinned when he saw Freddie had written ‘lobster’ at the bottom. Roger counted each coin with the cashier and held the small bag of groceries on his hip.

He tried to keep his focus on the stretch of pavement ahead, on watching his step and watching the people passing by, but his mind drifted back to Brian without fail. He felt silly, missing him so bad after four days, but he couldn’t help it, couldn’t help dwell on him like he’d gone forever. For all Roger knew, he had.

Freddie gave him a quiet hello when Roger came through the door, Roger gave him one back and put the sack of groceries on their countertop.

“Any news?” said Roger.

“Not yet,” said Freddie with a faux-optimistic tone. Roger knew Freddie was just as on-edge as him. If Brian never called, never spoke to him again, he had the most sensitive secret of Roger’s in the palm of his hands. For him to do with as he pleased. Not to mention he may want to pull his guitar from their record, a record that was two rhythm tracks and one isolated and layered guitar track away from being complete. Freddie was too gracious to bring up his concerns about the album but Roger knew he had them, knew they all did. “But John called for you.”

“Oh?” said Roger. “What’d he want?”

“Said to make sure you remembered you were recording the rhythm section for your song today,” said Freddie. “He told me to remind Brian as well and come down the four of us to try and start mixing the other tracks but…figured we wouldn’t want to do that.”

“Did you say why?” said Roger as he unloaded the groceries with no intent of actually putting them away.

“I said what I had to,” muttered Freddie, averting his eyes from Roger’s gaze, full of guilt.

“What did you _have_ to say?”

“Just that you and Brian were in a bit of a spat, that’s the word I used, spat,” said Freddie as he busied himself with the kettle. “I gave him no specifics past that. And he said it’d be better without Brian slowing you two down anyway so no harm no foul.”

Roger sighed, deep. Tired already from the whole thing. Tired of himself and worrying about what everyone else thought about it.

“Don’t get down,” said Freddie. Roger hadn’t noticed him staring. “John’s known for ages and never acted off. You knowing that he knows won’t change that. It’s nowhere near the forefront of his mind.”

“Yeah,” Roger ran a hand through his hair, “yeah, you’re right,” Roger’s mind drifted back to the times he could remember slipping in front of John. He could only think of four or five incidents where he’d been worried or afraid John might guess it. And each time John flew right by it. He couldn’t help but feel a little embarrassed looking back on moments he thought he’d lied so convincingly while John already knew the truth. “If we’re playing music we don’t have to talk.”

~~~

Roger had long since gotten used to his voice. In his youth he’d screamed for hours on end while he played, smoked all he could, burned his tired throat with alcohol to deepen it, incrementally. What it did most was roughen it, make him hoarse and gruff to a point where even though it was high and lilting, it didn’t give him away. He didn’t mind it anymore, not really, but as it piped into his headphones while he and John put down the rhythm he couldn’t help cringe. Couldn’t help wince at the lyrics, all about being an adolescent boy, with his voice an octave higher than anyone else.

“Start it over, start it over,” said Roger, screaming over the lingering notes of John’s bass. The engineer in the booth rewound Roger’s demo vocals.

“I thought you had that,” said John. Roger met his eyes only for a moment.

“Lost the one,” said Roger. That wasn’t true, he’d had the one the whole time he just couldn’t stand another moment of his song, of his own vocal track screeching back at him. “I need a break.”

“You look ill,” said John, “should we hold off on this one until everyone’s back?”

“No,” said Roger flatly. He stood and stretched and hurried out from behind his kit, careful not to trip this time. He tugged the door open and tried to ignore the way his hands shook as he poured himself coffee.

“Maybe more caffeine’s not the answer,” teased John from the doorway.

“Maybe,” said Roger with an uncomfortable laugh as he practically fell into the sticky vinyl chair of the breakroom.

“You really do look ill,” said John as he poured himself his own cup and sat across from Roger. “I’m alright to go home if you’re not up to it.”

“I’m not ill,” said Roger through gritted teeth. He rubbed his face, “just an off day.”

John nodded, thoughtful and quiet. “The song sounds great.”

“Hm?”

“Sounds great, I wish that were the single,” said John. “Don’t tell Freddie I said that.”

“I won’t,” said Roger with a weak smile.

“Is it,” John cleared his throat, “is it because of Brian?”

“We don’t have to talk about this,” said Roger.

“We can if you want—”

“We won’t,” said Roger sharply. “You know everything there is to know anyway, prick.” John tightened his lips and curled his hand around his coffee mug a little too tight. He knew John hadn’t found out through fault of his own, and once he did know he never let on, never let Roger feel strange about it, he didn’t deserve to be the whipping post for Roger’s frustrations and anxieties. Roger sighed and rested his head in his hand. “I’m sorry, that’s…I didn’t mean it.”

“It’s okay,” said John with an awkward laugh, “we don’t have to talk.”

“I don’t want to,” said Roger with a tense smile, “but I—well—now that it’s out there…why’d you never say anything?”

John shrugged and took a sip from his coffee. “I figured, you probably already knew.”

Roger grinned and felt the tension melt out of his shoulders.

“Did you want me to say something?”

“God no,” said Roger quickly, surprising himself as much as John. “Just curious to me that you didn’t. Freddie didn’t have a grand reaction either.”

“I don’t think people really care,” said John quietly, as if he knew Roger might have stories to prove him wrong, “the right people anyway.”

“Well,” Roger’s hand fell from his face to the tabletop, “Brian cares.”

“He does?” John cocked his head. Roger nodded in response, his grip tightened and loosened around his coffee mug, his ears focusing in hard on any sounds from the hall, any indication someone was passing and might hear. “That doesn’t seem like him.”

“Everyone keeps saying that but he hasn’t spoken to me in four days,” said Roger with a weak, sad grin.

“Well,” John scratched the peeling vinyl on the table, “I’m still talking to you.”

“You are,” said Roger with a grin. “Thanks for that…seems weird to thank you for not doing anything but it does mean a lot that you didn’t turn it into some,” he gestured with a rolled wrist, “some _event_.”

“Least I could do,” said John. And while it was the least he could do, so many people, in fact most of the people in his life still fell short of meeting that incredibly low bar. “I’m fairly impressed with how tight a lid you kept on it, especially living with someone as nosy as Freddie.”

“It wasn’t easy,” said Roger with a laugh. It felt odd to be so open, to be able to laugh about it with John of all people. He’d gotten to that point somewhat with Freddie, but he’d only really ever had a laugh about it with Clare. “I’m sure you’ve noticed the lock I installed on my door.”

“Well, I had an idea what it was for,” said John. Roger grinned at him, quiet and a little tired. The anxiety left him with only exhaustion. But it was good, good to know John truly, without exaggeration, didn’t give a shit about it. He only cared about Roger, about making sure his secret felt safe and he wasn’t bombarded with strange conversation about it. But he couldn’t give a toss what Roger’s name used to be, what his hair used to look like. He was one of very few people in Roger’s life to feel that way. “You ready to give the track another shot?”

“I suppose,” Roger leaned back in his chair, “can’t stand hearing my own voice for so long.”

“What’s the matter, you hit every note,” said John. “Not _all of us_ have the privilege of being able to carry a tune.”

Roger smirked then broke into a laugh before forfeiting and returning to the recording booth with John. The sound of his own voice still grated on him and the tension in his ribs still ached with each crash of his cymbals but he bore it with a smile. Despite it all, he was having fun with John. Having fun watching him dance, watching him mouth the words, watching him imitate Roger’s drumming face in the few breaks he got.

~~~

“Did he call?” said Roger, first words out of his mouth following his first step through the front door.

“Not yet, darling,” said Freddie from deep in their small flat. Roger groaned and slammed the door. He’d gone out with some of his other friends. Friends that had no idea about any of his troubles, no input in the albums due date, no stake in his and Brian’s relationship, no knowledge about it either. A bunch of people who were so blissfully unaware of so much about Roger that he almost forgot about his own troubles. Almost. “How was everyone?”

“Good. Fine,” said Roger as he hung his coat up on the peg by the door.

“Wow, good _and fine_. Sounds like a riot.”

“That’s the best I’ve got right now,” said Roger with a tired sigh. He knew Freddie’s eyes were on him as he shuffled to the couch and fell into the cushions that were so old, so worn they conformed exactly to Roger.

“You need tea,” said Freddie, mostly to himself. Roger made no effort to reply but got lost in the sounds of Freddie moving about the kitchen putting together two mugs of tea for them both. He reached up weakly to accept the piping hot mug when Freddie handed it to him and took care not to spill any when Freddie plopped down next to him. “Did you have fun?”

“I did,” said Roger. “I’m just worn out.”

“That’s all right, be as tired as you like,” said Freddie. Roger sighed, closed his eyes a bit and held the tea against his tightly bound chest, letting it warm him and loosen the tension in his shoulders while it was still a bit too hot to drink. “John told me he and Brian worked on the guitars a bit.”

Roger’s eyes shot open. “Did he mention me?”

“Sorry darling,” said Freddie with a sympathetic look and a shrug. “But, that also means he’s not telling anyone. He’s kept it to himself, he’s not quitting the band, he’s coming around.”

“Yeah,” said Roger flatly.

“It’s only been—”

“Almost a week,” said Roger.

“Yes but that’s not so long, not really.”

Technically Freddie was right. A week wasn’t very long. But between a couple it was ages, between the two of them it was even longer. And the fact that it started because Brian found out hurt. It made him ache with an indescribable pain that he’d never be rid of, that had been with him since Truro. A pain he’d learned to ignore, a pain Brian was worsening day by day. A week wasn’t long but it wore him down to the end of his rope.

“At least I have you,” said Roger. “You and John.”

“You’ve got Brian too.”

“Maybe,” said Roger. “But I know I have you both.”

“Well…that’s what friends’re for,” said Freddie quietly.

“Not my friends,” said Roger with a scoff. “When I was in school, when Clare chopped all my hair off and I got around to telling a few people, it was like I was a leper.”

“I’m sorry, Rog,” Freddie leaned on him a bit, put hand in Roger’s.

“One of my old boyfriends told his friends, my friends too that he’d ‘fucked the girl out of me’,” said Roger. Freddie’s hand in his own squeezed a little tighter. He rested his head on Roger’s shoulder. “I’m thinking that, if I had you and John around back then, not just poor Clare scrambling to understand, I wouldn’t have got so down on myself. Thinking with you and John around now I might not ever get so down on myself again.”

“We all three love you so dearly, Rog,” said Freddie, nestling closer. “So dearly. You’ve got us now, we all know the whole truth and we’re all still here. Us three and Clare.” Freddie sat back just a bit, just enough to reach up and play with Roger’s hair the way he liked.

“Y’know I still haven’t mentioned to her that I’m gay as well,” said Roger. He sighed and leaned into Roger’s touch.

“I think you’ve done the hard part,” said Freddie with a chuckle. “And she took that well didn’t she?”

Roger scoffed. “She took it better than I did.” Roger grinned at the memory. “One night I was pacing like mad, trying to figure out how to say it and she was pestering me to spit it out. I think what I ended up saying was ‘do you ever wish you had a brother’.”

“God,” laughed Freddie, “you really need to practice saying this with a little more composure.”

“It was my first time!” said Roger with a laugh. “Once I finally got the words out she laughed at me and said ‘is this the speech you’ve been practicing in the shower?’, totally humiliating. But that was all the adjustment she needed. I thought she might be mad that I’d embarrass her if anyone found out, or might be confused by it all, but she didn’t care really.”

“Seems like Clare, seems like you,” said Freddie softly.

“Why didn’t I just do that with Brian? Just tell him straight out,” said Roger with a pained laugh. “I fucked it up—”

“You didn’t fuck it up,” said Freddie, twisting another lock of Roger’s hair around his finger, “you threw him for a loop, but you didn’t fuck it up.”

“Maybe,” said Roger. He curled up a bit, set his mug down and leaned further into Freddie. He used to do the same to Clare. After a long day of his so called friends shouting the most horrible things at him he’d fall silent and curl up next to her, let her go on and on about her day while he tried to forget his own. Back then he felt guilty, horribly guilty for burdening Clare with his own issues when she herself no doubt had her own. Every teenager did. But Clare always swore it was no trouble to let him nap next to her if he needed it, so he felt no reservations doing the same to Freddie. Putting all of his weight against him and falling sound asleep.

~~~

After a week Roger was clawing up the walls. Freddie suggested giving in, going over and forcing a conversation but Roger didn’t want to rush him. For the time being he could’ve been feeling anything, good or bad. Roger wasn’t keen on showing up at his flat, hurrying him along and accidentally pushing him in the wrong direction. But a week without so much as a phone call ate him up. There was so much in the air, so much to be unsure about. And he knew John and Freddie were on edge with him as the completion of their album got pushed back another day, another few days, another week.

Freddie offered up a night at the pub, Roger turned it down. His anxious stomach couldn’t handle booze and his nerves couldn’t handle leaving the telephone unattended. Freddie told him Brian would call twice if he’d call once but Roger wasn’t so sure. Freddie was antsy to go, and Roger didn’t like the idea of spoiling his fun to watch the phone sit on their table, so he urged him out, promised he’d rather the time alone even though it wasn’t true.

After an hour of watching one of Freddie’s soaps, he wished he’d gone. Or wished Freddie’d stayed. Or wished someone had come by. Wished he weren’t alone, wished Brian would call. Even if it was just to say goodbye.

A knock hit the door. “It’s open Fred,” said Roger. He watched the door open, just a bit, before getting caught on the chain. Roger groaned, “hang on.”

“Okay,” said a voice distinctly not Freddie’s. A voice he’d gone so long without hearing it sounded totally new to his ears, but totally familiar.

“Brian?” said Roger, hesitating by the door, hiding far away from the slight opening.

“Yeah, it’s me—I know you weren’t expecting me but…” Brian sighed, “please open the door.”

“Just,” Roger reached for the bandage he left on the back of their couch, “just one second.” He hated trying to bind himself up with clothes on but he’d become adept to it through experiences like this one. He winced at the way they hugged his bruises. After so much time spent at home, staring at the phone and moping around the flat, they’d almost begun to heal. Once he’d safety pinned it all into place, his shaking hand closed the door and unthreaded the chain lock to open it.

Brian’s frizzy curls caught the moon light, the street lights so perfectly. His face looked so soft but strong. The sharper edges blurred by the dim lighting. Roger wanted to reach out, to wrap his arms tight and secure around Brian. But there was no way to tell how bad his news was. If their friendship was over too or just their relationship. If, in his confusion, he’d told half of London.

“Hi,” said Roger with arms crossed tight over his chest.

“I know I’m not supposed to be here,” said Brian, apologetic and a little shy, “but I couldn’t take it anymore.”

“What?” said Roger with a grin.

“I know you told me to leave you alone but I—have—I _have_ to talk to you, I had to see you I—I missed you.” Brian punctuated his words with a hopeless hand half-extended towards him before a sharp retraction, a shy step forward before he leant away.

“I told you to leave me alone?” said Roger.

“Yeah,” scoffed Brian, “shouted it at me from the street that night. You sounded deadly.”

“Why the fuck—why would you—Why would I wan you to leave me alone?” said Roger pinching the bridge of his nose. “I screamed that when I was fucking drunk why would you take it seriously?”

“You seemed serious,” Brian put his hands in his pockets, a little awkward a lot defensive, “I—why didn’t you just call me if I wasn’t supposed to be leaving you alone?”

“Because I was giving you space,” said Roger as if it were obvious.

“The fuck would I need space for?” said Brian.

“To think!” said Roger.

“You thought I’d need a week for that?”

Roger shrugged. A beat of silence fell between them. Roger scanned Brian’s face, trying to predict what he might say before he stepped aside and muttered that Brian ought to come in.

“D’you want tea—” began Roger.

“Roger, I’m so sorry,” said Brain overtop. Roger stared for a moment and Brian added, “no…no tea thanks.”

“What’s to be sorry for?” Roger meandered over to switch the telly off.

“For the stupid things I said.”

“I don’t remember anything horrendous,” said Roger.

“I asked you _where it was_ ,” replied Brian. Roger winced at the memory and smiled a tense, half embarrassed half uncomfortable, smile.

“That wasn’t your best.”

“And I’m sorry—Roger, I,” Brian took a nervous step towards Roger as he switched off the record player that stopped playing music nearly three hours ago and stubbed out the incense Freddie started burning before he left. Brian stared at him, eyes pleading and seemingly at a loss. Roger stood up straight and waited for whatever it was Brian needed to say to come out. He could feel his skin clam up at the idea, at the fact that this might be their last few moments together, as a couple he was sure, but maybe even as friends. He’d heard it before ‘I’m sorry but it’s just too weird’. ‘I’m sorry but I don’t like you like this’. ‘I’m sorry but I can’t see you as a man’.

“I’m sorry I said the things I said and did what I did.”

“But?” prompted Roger.

“But you put me in a weird position.”

Roger sighed, his heart sinking, and pushed past Brian to head to his room, to find a little comfort while Brian explained to him, very slowly and arduously, why they couldn’t be together. “I know,” said Roger as he sat on his bed and worked on unlacing his boots, “I should’ve told you before that night.”

“You should’ve,” said Brian, meekly taking a seat in Roger’s desk chair. “But I was,” he shook his head, “horrible, just so…It was a very big thing to have to tell someone and I panicked and thought only of myself.”

“Don’t be too hard on yourself.” Roger’s voice was entirely devoid of emotion, of sincerity. He’d given this speech too many times to too many friends who decided being on his side wasn’t worth the discomfort, to too many old boyfriends who begged from the bottom of their hearts for Roger to keep their past a secret.

“It—I’d never, I’d never considered it,” said Brian. “I wasn’t sober enough to try and work it out right then.”

“Freddie said you may never even’ve heard of people like me,” said Roger.

“I have,” said Brian. “Just never _met_ someone like you—well,” he laughed at himself, “I guess I wouldn’t always know. I expected that to be a more obvious thing.”

“Sometimes it is,” Roger cracked his knuckles anxiously, “I think it’s obvious with me too.”

“Maybe,” Brian eyed him carefully. “There’s things…There’s little things, about the way you look the way you sound, that seemed different to me, but I was too sheltered I guess to come to that conclusion.”

“I can’t say I’m disappointed you didn’t think of it yourself,” said Roger with a laugh. Brian grinned back.

“So Freddie knows?” said Brian with hand creeping up to rub his neck.

“And John,” Roger sighed. “I didn’t tell them they just found out on their own.”

“I’ve known you the longest, why’s it taken me so long?” said Brian with a laugh to disguise how genuine his words were.

“Left to my own devices, no one would know,” said Roger. “So much easier to be alone than it is to tell everyone something so,” his words trailed off with a shudder. Brian winced, unsure what to say, unsure what Roger wanted to hear. It was a familiar expression he used to see on Clare’s face. When he’d come home from a disappointing day and rant for hours about how shit his lot was and she’d stare at him, wondering what would help. “Why’d you come here?”

“Guilt was eating me up but mostly I missed you, like mad,” added Brian with quickly fading smirk. “I don’t—I don’t care about it, about—about what you’ve got, I just want to be around you again, if you’ll let me.”

“So, you don’t,” Roger gripped the edge of his mattress a little tighter, “see me in a new light? I’m not a freak in your eyes or…or a girl?”

“What—no, no no no,” said Brian, quick and gentle as he stood. He shuffled over and sat on Roger’s creaky mattress with him, nervously covered one of Roger’s hands with his own, “I know who you are, you don’t have to worry about me getting confused.”

“You wouldn’t be the first,” said Roger. “If it bothers you then—then fine but I have to know. It’s not going to change so—”

Brian shushed him. He wasn’t the type to ever hold enough confidence to do so, especially not with Roger, but Roger quieted down and leaned into the way Brian held his wrist and rubbed his thumb in small circles across his pulse.

“It doesn’t bother me. When I found out I was very,” he stammered for a moment, “surprised, and drunk, and couldn’t think. That all passed as soon as you left.”

“You didn’t need time?”

Brian shook his head. “To sober up maybe, but not to think. There’s nothing to consider for me, I just want you.”

Roger put a hand on his thigh, a light touch that Brian might’ve commented on if Roger hadn’t leant in and shut him up. Brian melted against Roger, kissing him back with just as much urgency and reaching out for his hips, for his waist, tugging him closer. A week felt like years with this weighing so heavily between them.

“I missed you,” hummed Brian against his lips.

“I missed you too,” said Roger as he pulled back, just enough to add, “should we try again?”

“Try what?”

Roger responded with a kiss, with a hand inching up Brian’s thigh and tugging at his zipper. Brian only groaned, moved closer to Roger, begged for more contact. Roger gave it to him. Unbuttoned his trousers and reached into his pants to stroke his cock. The weight of it, the feel of it in his hand sent shocks up Roger’s spine knowing that finally, the daydream could end. The fantasies and desperate desires could end and he could feel it for himself. That horrible, needy throbbing in the pit of his stomach, between his legs, would be tended to without fear.

“Can I?” whispered Brian with one hand on Roger’s zipper. Roger nodded, a little too on edge to try for words. He held his breath and slowed his strokes around Brian’s cock when his hand dipped into his trousers. “D’you have separate cock socks from feet socks?” said Brian as he tugged the balled up pair from Roger’s pants.

“Should I?” said Roger with a laugh.

“No,” said Brian, his hand lingering at Roger’s hip, “but that doesn’t seem all too comfortable.”

“I draw the line at wool, but otherwise I’m too poor to have separate cock socks,” said Roger.

“Should I call it—it—it that?” said Brian, a bit more serious.

“Hm?”

“Should I—should I say it’s your cock?” Brian’s face grew to a shade of red Roger hadn’t seen in what felt like ages.

“Anything else might turn my stomach,” said Roger with a breathy laugh to ease the tension, the fear in Brian’s face. Fear born of worry that he might slip up, say the wrong thing, do the wrong thing. Not fear of Roger. For once.

Brian pressed his palm to Roger’s belly and inched down until Roger’s breath hitched and his legs spread, until he sighed into the feeling of Brian’s fingertips, the way he moved them in perfect circles, the way he pressed down just hard enough to make him want more. Slow and deliberate, not hurrying to get Roger screaming, but working him carefully, getting used to it, watching Roger intently as if he might suddenly push him off.

“Fuck,” sighed Roger, rushing forward to kiss Brian once more, as much of a show of gratitude as need, “in, in, in.”

“It won’t hurt? Hasn’t it been awhile since—” began Brian.

“I don’t care if it hurts,” said Roger with a roll of his hips, “in.”

Brian’s breath hitched, his free hand shook as it clutched Roger’s waist a little tighter, and he pressed two fingers awkwardly into him, as if he’d never done it before, as if each feeling was brand new, and maybe on some level it was. Roger kissed him, deep and loving, and relished the feeling of Brian’s fingers in him, of the heel of Brian’s hand pressed against that wonderful spot.

There was an odd privacy in the intensity. He was covered, by Brian’s hand by his own trousers, and was sure to keep Brian’s eyes locked on his own. Private, closed off but reaping the rewards he thought could only come with bearing his soul. “Can you…can you go faster?”

Brian did. His fingers moved faster, his breathing sped up and his hips bucked into Roger’s loose grip. Roger stroked him with a bit more care, focusing on him more. Feeling his cock in his hand, feeling the way the smooth skin felt against his roughed up hands. Brian’s hand tensed in him, pressing hard against the sweet spot inside him, as he got closer. Roger stroked him faster and found his mind ignoring the beautiful sounds Brian made, ignoring the way he held Roger’s hip with a shaky grip, and focusing on the way his cock felt. How firm, how hot he was in his palm. As Brian’s fingers pressed into him he couldn’t help but fixate on how different he was. How much more tedious, more complicated, messier his body was compared to Brian’s.

“Roger,” sighed Brian as he rested his forehead on Roger’s shoulder and spilled over in his hand. Roger stroked him through it, gritting his teeth and doing all he could to focus on the sensation above the reality of it. Focus on the way Brian’s’ hand moved and how it felt rather than what Brian might think of it all, or how different they were. “Fuck, I missed you.”

“You came a lot,” said Roger, licking it off the back of his hand, giving Brian a show as his muscles all tightened in anxiety.

“Like I said, I missed you,” said Brian. His fingers began their even pace in Roger, moving blindly and waiting for a reaction from Roger to tell him it was right. Roger faked a moan, maybe two and shut his eyes tight, as if that might help him focus, help him get this over with. He asked for it faster, as if that might help, and when Brian gave it to him Roger grabbed his wrist. Mostly as reflex, barely thinking of it before he realised he’d done it. “What’s wrong?”

“Out,” muttered Roger, which was all Brian needed to pull his hand away, his face plastered with concern and confusion.

“Are you alright?”

“I think I’m gonna be sick,” said Roger, slurring his words together, desperate to keep his mouth closed. His eyes drifted away from Brian’s face, down his hip, down his leg to where his hand rested. His fingers glistened in the lamplight. Glistened because of Roger.

Roger took a deep breath to steady himself, and on the exhale realised that wouldn’t work and shot up for the loo. He heard Brian calling for him as he slid onto his knees and clutched the toilet bowl with shaky hands. He gagged, heaved up nothing, his empty stomach just going through the motions and burning Roger’s throat with acid. Brian put a hand on his back and kept it there until Roger’s dry heaving finally stopped.

“Sorry,” said Roger, his voice sounding congested and sore.

“What happened?” said Brian.

“i don’t know.”

“Is it me? Did I do—” began Brian.

“No,” said Roger. He wiped his face roughly. “It’s me, it’s always me.” He spat once and sat back to choke down some air, to calm his laboured breathing. To think about Brian’s wet fingers. To focus on the fact that that was _him._

He’d had his share of sex in his teenage years. And while there was always a nagging discomfort while he pretended to be a girl, he never threw up. He’d never been so disgusted by his anatomy, by what the other person might think of it, that he found himself with indents on his knees from the bathroom tiles. But back then he wasn’t asserting that he was a boy, in fact he was trying to make himself believe the opposite. And he’d never been touched since those days, never had to confront his own body in the truest context. Never had to wonder if it made him less of a man in someone else’s eyes.

“You look pale,” said Brian.

“Okay,” said Roger. He had nothing to say, no tears either. He noticed that deep ache, that dull need at his center hadn’t gone away, hadn’t even faded. But the idea of being seen enough by Brian to sate it made his throat tighten. He slammed his hand against the toilet seat, half frustrated half defeated.

“We can wait,” said Brian.

“Huh?” said Roger, blinking at him, trying to get his eyes to focus.

“Waiting was only hard before because I thought you didn’t want me. It’ll be easy now,” said Brian with a warm smile.

“I don’t want to wait,” said Roger tiredly. His legs shook when he got to his feet. “We don’t have to wait. But I can’t tonight.”

“That’s apparent,” Brian stood with him. “I can stay over if you like…I can go too if you don’t want to share the room.”

Roger clenched his jaw and thought about how nice it would feel to lock himself up in his room, alone. To sit away from his mirrors and thumb through his old comics. To open his window and let the breeze catch his bare back while he let his ribs have a moment to heal. To fall asleep on his own time, after he’d brought himself to the brink of exhaustion to avoid any thinking while he drifted off.

But he’d done that for years. For twenty four years now. And it might be nice to sleep with Brian pressed against him.

“Stay,” said Roger. “Please.”

Brian was quick to say yes. Roger leant him something to sleep in and made him avert his eyes while he unwrapped his chest. And turned off the lights after he did, and told Brian not to look, told him not to touch. So Brian didn’t. He laid on the far edge of Roger’s bed and smiled when Roger slid in next to him, hurrying to pull the sheets up to his neck to let the duvet disguise his chest for him. Brian kissed the corner of his mouth and ran his hand cautiously up his hip, across his waist, low, not daring to move further up Roger’s body.

Roger was glad to have Brian right there, breathing in time with him and squeezing his fingertips against his hips, tangling their legs together. But Roger was miles away, lost in thought, the acid from his stomach left an ache in his throat. But there was a comfort in the way he pressed his forehead to Brian’s chest, the way he pressed his fingers against his bony ribs and held him.

“You alright, Rog?” whispered Brian against the top of his head.

“I’m okay,” said Roger, eyes closed focused on the faint heartbeat of Brian’s he could feel under his fingertips.

“Thanks for letting me stay,” said Brian, Roger felt him press a kiss to his head.

“Thanks for staying,” said Roger. Brian held him a little tighter, rubbed little circles into his hip, into his back, leaned into the way their legs tangled and gave Roger a sleepy goodnight. Roger gave him one back.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hiya! So this is it, the last chapter! I may do an epilogue if any of you would like that! I'm really sad to leave this fic, but I think I'll do another trans fic up next? Thoughts on that? Either way I hope you like this fic, this chapter, and if you do please leave a comment, I can't stress enough how much I adore them and thank you to anyone who has commented in the past and kept me going <33 Enjoy!

Brian stayed over more, Roger did too. Roger made sure he never saw him out of his bandages, never felt how soft his chest was, and Brian was sure not to look, not to touch. Roger always got up and out of bed first, wrapped his chest up while Brian could lay down and close his eyes.

But sometimes, they’d wake up in a tangle of limbs, thighs slotted together and their hips would roll. Roger got the closest on mornings like those, as opposed to their nights spent together where Roger had to stop the fun seconds after Brian touched him. In the morning he was dazed enough, sleepy enough to forget who he was and focus on how Brian’s thigh felt when he ground down against it, how his hardening cock felt pressing against his stomach.

And on that morning Brian tried for a hand, a hand that slowly moved down Roger’s side, never going higher than his ribs, down his hips and between his legs. Roger took a pained breath in when Brian’s fingers worked him, sliding up the leg of his boxer shorts to get around the thin fabric that separated them. Roger hummed, breathing deep and focusing on how it felt, how good Brian was with his hands. Until.

“Stop stop,” breathed Roger. Brian was used to that by now. The first few times he’d tried again after Roger had run off to the loo he still had a face of panic when Roger urgently shooed him off. But this had become the norm. “You are good at that,” said Roger in an attempt to stroke Brian’s damaged ego.

“Thanks,” said Brian with no real care.

Roger sighed deep and rolled onto his back. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Brian’s voice was unconvincing at best, “if it takes time it takes time.”

“Be honest,” Roger kept his eyes on the ceiling, “is this worse than before?”

“No—”

“Is it worse that we both want it but I’m just, just impotent? Worse than making you wait for something?”

“You’re not impotent,” said Brian.

“What would you call it?” spat Roger. Brian had no reply. “I’ve kept you in this hell for almost a month, you’re allowed to be frustrated.”

“It’s not hell,” said Brian softly. “It’s frustrating but now I can sleep in the same bed as you, couldn’t even sleep in the same room before. And I can actually touch you even if it doesn’t get you off.”

Roger let a silence sit before sighing and sitting up. He kept the duvet on his chest and told Brian to close his eyes. He did. Roger always flipped him off to make sure they were shut tight before standing and tugging his shirt off to start on his binding. Freddie knocked on his door and cracked it open.

“Good, you’re awake, we’ve got the promo shoot in,” Freddie checked his watch. “Fuck if I know when it is but I feel like it’s soon.”

“We know,” said Roger with a grin.

“Also I told Mick we couldn’t do shirtless with you because you and I got in a drunken pub fight, if he asks, we’re all bruised up.”

Roger scoffed. “And he believed that?”

“Why shouldn’t he? It was genius.”

“Well—’s long as he doesn’t check, it doesn’t matter to me,” said Roger.

“God,” said Freddie as his eyes drifted down to Roger’s exposed ribs. “They were healing up so nice before.”

“Bye Fred,” said Roger as he nudged the door shut. He finished up his binding and pinned it in place. He didn’t like Brian to see him in just his bindings for too long. He knew it looked strange and he really didn’t want to risk Brian seeing the newer bruises. So he was tugging on a shirt by the time he told Brian to open his eyes. “Promise me after the promo albums and photos get printed you wont run off with a groupie?”

“I won’t,” said Brian with no humour. “Why didn’t you tell Freddie to close his eyes?”

“Hm?” said Roger, as he thumbed through his trousers.

“Freddie didn’t have to shut his eyes while you were doing up your chest, why did I?”

“Because,” began Roger, not wanting to end the sentence with the truth. So he ended it with nothing, nothing of value, “it’s just different.”

“Different how?”

Roger paused, unsure how to answer, unsure what the truth was. “We don’t have time for this, we’ll be late.”

“Fine.”

Brian stayed over enough that he had plenty of clothes in one of Roger’s drawers, some hanging in one spot of his shallow closet as well. Roger had the same at Brian’s. On the nights they weren’t together, Roger always dipped into Brian’s side and for something to sleep in, something that smelled like Brian. Roger might’ve said that to him, might’ve tried to remind him how much he meant to him even if his body was somewhat of a secret. But the way Brian’s jaw clenched, the way he manhandled his clothes like he didn’t care if they’d rip, made Roger decide on muttering something about coffee and slipping out of his room undetected.

~~~

“Brian, stop looking like you’re miserable,” said Mick while they posed. “No fake smiling either, we don’t want smiles here.”

“You’re being very vague,” sighed Brian, as close to a confrontation as he’d get with Mick. The four of them were wedged in front of white background, white clothes draped all over them. Heavy, expensive fabrics they were told in no uncertain terms to take care of or risk replacing. Brian, being tall, stood at the back. Roger couldn’t see his tense shoulders or clenched jaw, couldn’t see his upset and disgruntled expression but he knew it was all there. And he knew he wasn’t the only one that could sense it.

“Alright, er,” Mick stood up a little straighter and sighed at the camera’s tripod, “well I do think I’ve got it so if you’d all rather get out of those outfits that’s fine by me.”

“You don’t sound too confident,” said Freddie. Brian, somewhere behind him, had already begun peeling the white robes off. Roger looked back once or twice, hoping to catch his eyes, but also hoping he didn’t.

“No I _know_ I’ve got it,” Mick folded his hands behind his head, “but I always like options.”

“I don’t know if we’re in the mood for options today,” said Freddie with a laugh that Roger knew was fake, a laugh he used to diffuse tension and steer conversation.

“That’s clear,” said Mick with a tired grin. “Brian—please be careful with that, it cost more than your rent.”

“I’m—” Brian tugged the fabric of his outfit over his head, “I’m _being_ careful.”

“Oh don’t be so childish,” said Freddie in as gentle a tone as he could muster. Brian, ever one to avoid confrontation, let it lie and was careful when he handed off his cape to Mick’s assistant.

Freddie distracted Mick while Roger snuck off to the bathroom with his clothes wadded up in his hands. He hung the strange concoction he wore up by the sink and pulled his clothes on in a hurry before hurrying right back out before he tore the expensive fabric one something. The sooner it was out of his hands the better. Mick promised them he got a good shot and that even with the shorter session they’d had a good shoot. Freddie made him swear on his mother before he was satisfied and allowed the rest of them to leave.

“Rog and I have the stall,” said Freddie once they hit the pavement, “if anyone, _John_ , drove here, maybe they’d like to drive us to work?”

“I didn’t drive, sorry,” said John through a laugh.

“Bitch,” said Freddie with a grin. “Well,” he took Roger’s sleeve and tugged, “c’mon, we need rent.”

“Okay,” said Roger, squinting the sunlight out of his eyes and looking up at Brian with an uncertainty he hadn’t had in awhile, “you’ll be by later?”

“I’ve got papers to grade,” said Brian with an awkward shuffle of his feet.

“Need help?”

“I’ve got it.”

“Oh, okay,” Roger gritted his teeth and crossed his arms tight across his chest while he fumbled for something to fill the silence. With everyone waited on him he settled for getting up on his toes to peck Brian’s cheek in a half hearted goodbye he didn’t reciprocate with more than a barely audible ‘see you’. He was grateful when Freddie took it upon himself to drag him away, loudly saying they needed to get to work.

“Fuck was that?” said Freddie once they rounded the corner.

“I don’t know, he’s upset with me.” Roger rubbed his face tiredly and groaned at the prospect of opening up their stall for the day. He just didn’t have the energy.

“How can he be upset?” scoffed Freddie. “You’re giving it to him every fucking night, can the man appreciate nothing?”

“What’d’you mean?” They crossed the street to get in the sun a bit, to warm up.

“I mean if I were getting laid this regularly I’d not be so sour over _anything_.”

“Oh, well maybe he would too,” Roger stuffed his hands in his pockets. “But we’re not having sex.”

“What?” Freddie said it with a laugh that was more concern than humour. “I thought you—I thought it was all sorted, it’s been weeks since you made up.”

“Not for lack of trying.” They turned a corner that cruelly blocked them from the sun and gave them over to the chilly winds. “On both our parts. It’s just…not…” Roger shivered, from the cold and from the topic, “it’s complicated.”

“No shame in that,” Freddie knocked their shoulders together. “I imagine it’d be tricky. Or—not that—not that it’s inherently tricky for people to—I just meant it seemed like it might be difficult or….Y’know what, I’m just going to quit while I’m behind.”

“I know what you meant,” said Roger with a grin.

“Well is that his problem? Why he’s all pissy? Because it’s taking longer than he thought or something?” Roger could hear Freddie’s indignation on his behalf in his voice.

“No, it’s—well usually in the mornings I have him shut his eyes while I get…it all…presentable,” said Roger. Freddie absentmindedly patted his chest and nodded, “and this morning he heard me open the door for you, while I was getting ready. And he’s been in a shit mood ever since.”

“Oh,” Freddie looked straight ahead with a furrowed brow.

“What ‘oh’?”

“I,” he paused for a moment, eyes still on the pavement in front of them, and shrugged, “I don’t know, I’m not in your position so I don’t know really how I’d do it but…in my head you would be okay with Brian watching you do up your bandages before you’d be okay with me seeing it.” Roger clenched his jaw and sighed. “Is that why you won’t take that dreadful stuff off at home anymore? He’s not…allowed?”

“Don’t say it like I’m forbidding him or something, I just prefer he didn’t know,” said Roger.

“Well he does know,” laughed Freddie.

“He knows it all _technically_ , he doesn’t need to experience it first hand.” Roger searched his pockets for his cigarettes, suddenly craving one.

“I thought you said you wanted to fuck him,” said Freddie with a cut-off laugh.

“I do.” Roger lit the cigarette between his lips and slid the lighter back into his pocket.

“So…” Freddie rolled his wrist. “Are you not seeing the issue?”

“Easy for you to say—easy for Brian to say,” spat Roger.

“It is,” Freddie watched Roger intently as he took a long drag, Roger could feel his eyes on him and was focusing very hard on not turning to meet his gaze.

“It’s pretty fucking intimidating to think about,” said Roger on a deep breath out. “It’s all well and good to say he won’t mind but y’know, I mind sometimes, and who’s to say he won’t either. Just because he knows doesn’t mean...” his words trailed off and his uncertain hand reached up to put the cigarette back between his lips.

“He loves you, Roger,” said Freddie with a strange sort of resignation.

“He’s never said that,” said Roger.

Freddie sighed deep and let silence settle between them for awhile as they made it to the train station and stuffed themselves into the compact carriages. Roger ignored the way Freddie stared at him, eyes full of sympathy and sadness that Roger would rather he kept to himself. Freddie didn’t understand it the way Roger did, no one could. Yes on every cosmic level, his body was just that, a body, and on that very cosmic level it was pointless to dwell on the minute differences between them. But in reality, those differences meant a lot to most people, and it didn’t seem fair that he should automatically assume those differences wouldn’t matter to Brian.

Although, he’d never been skittish before. Roger clutched the bar above him and remembered the night he ‘told’ Brian in a very tactile way. Brian hadn’t really flinched, hadn’t shied away from touching Roger in the slightest and he’d not even been given warning for any of it. Maybe if he’d known beforehand, maybe if they hadn’t been so drunk, it could’ve gone by with no mention.

There was a thin line between giving Brian credit for how kind he’d been so far and not worrying about how he might react, and expecting too much from him and pushing his kindness over the edge, scaring him off. Roger wouldn’t look at Freddie as the train rattled through the tunnels. He wouldn’t be made to feel guilty for keeping himself safe from the heartbreak he felt was almost imminent.

~~~

Roger gave Brian a day of sulking and being upset all on his own before taking the two trains over to his flat with no warning. He’d waited all day for a call and when he didn’t get one, he hastily pinned his bindings into place and stormed out. He learnt his lesson and promised both Freddie and Brian he’d never let a silence linger between them for days on end like it had before. And though he wanted to claim he was the bigger man by being the first to reach out after Brian had gotten pissy, Roger knew it wasn’t as cut and dry as all that. Knew that if Brian was upset enough to ignore him for a day and a half, his feelings must’ve been seriously hurt.

“Open up!” said Roger, banging on Brian’s door.

“Rog?” said Tim on the other side.

“Open up!” replied Roger, a bit louder, a bit more urgent. Roger heard the locks clicking out of place and held his breath as the door opened. Tim grinned at him with a cocked head. “Is Brian in?”

“He’s got his nose to the grindstone,” said Tim with a smirk.

“I’m _sure_ he’s hard at work,” said Roger with a roll of his eyes as he pushed his way into the flat. He heard Tim muttering something about Brian being busy, not wanting to be disturbed, but he didn’t care. He knew this was far more important to both of them than some low level maths homework. He knocked once and shoved Brian’s door open. He took a step in and slammed it behind him.

Brian, hunched over his desk, looked over at him with a sort of shock Roger hadn’t seen on his face since, well since he found out. “Roger—what’re you doing here?”

“Aren’t you pleased to see me?” Roger’s voice had no life in it. He flopped on Brian’s bed and crossed his legs, Brian turned in his desk chair, eyes still wide and curious. “Talk.”

“Me?” Brian scoffed. “You talk, you’re the one barging in.”

“You’re the one who’s upset,” spat Roger. “Tell me why.”

“I’m not upset.” Brian turned back to his papers.

“Well, I’m convinced,” deadpanned Roger.

“God—I didn’t fucking call you because I wasn’t ready to talk to you, I’m still not,” said Brian, his pencil pressing deep into the stack of papers, about as aggressive as Brian ever got.

“Can you try,” said Roger in as gentle a tone as he could muster. It would be so much easier to just scream and give into Brian’s meager showing of anger.

“I,” Brian groaned and turned to face him, “I’m upset that—I’m mad—I’m well I’m not—I’m angry but it…” he paused to collect the few beginnings of sentences and took a breath, “I’m upset.”

“Okay,” said Roger with a smirk he hoped might cut the tension. Though he wasn’t sure Brian even saw it. “Why?”

“It’s—it’s one thing if you’ve got to keep me at a distance because it’s uncomfortable for you,” said Brian with a tight jaw, “that’s fine, that’s what I thought was going on. But then—you’re just so open with Freddie it’s like it’s got something to do with me and when I asked you just…blew it off like it didn’t matter but—Roger it matters to me. Y’know I don’t like the way I look either,” said Brian with a shake in his voice and his hands. “I know it’s…different, not equivalent and all that, I know, but...” he took another breath, always once to be careful with his words. “I feel like I’m very open with you, and you are not very open with _just me_.”

Roger took it in for a moment, making a concerted effort to digest what Brian told him and not scream or spit out some smart remark like he was more inclined to. And failing

“It’s not the same,” said Roger. “You’ve got no idea what this is like for me! None! Not liking the way you look is _entirely_ fucking different from this! And if I don’t mind if Freddie sees some things I hide from you then just—just fucking—just fucking get over it, Brian, just get the fuck over it! I’m doing my fucking best I’m sorry if it’s not going fast enough for you but—”

“That’s not what I’m fucking saying!” screamed Brian as loud as he could, which wasn’t much. “Damn it, Rog, I told you I didn’t want to talk, I’m _getting over it_. I know you’re doing your best, I know that. And I’m doing my best. It’s not nearly as hard for me but it’s not easy either, Rog, it’s not.”

Roger wanted to yell some more, to remind Brian of what he went through every day, every morning, every time Brian touched him, every time he had to reject him. But Brian knew all that. Brian worked harder to understand it than Roger sometimes. So he stayed quiet, sat on Brian’s bed. Eventually he took a few papers from him, graded in Brian’s immaculate handwriting, and once they were done he rummaged around in his side of Brian’s top dresser drawer for something to sleep in.

“I didn’t say you could stay over,” said Brian.

“Can I,” said Roger, a fistful of clothes in his hand.

“Well, obviously yes but I’d like it if you asked,” said Brian, trying to sound mad but the anger had left them both awhile ago. He averted his eyes as he always did while Roger changed and reached over him to turn his bedside lamp off once Roger was settled under his covers.

“I’m sorry,” muttered Roger.

“Me too,” said Brian. He kissed the soft angle of Roger’s jaw.

“And you should like the way you look,” Roger turned on his side to face him.

“Well, you’re biased,” said Brian with an awkward giggle.

“I mean it,” Roger trailed a hand down Brian’s side. “You’re very handsome. I wouldn’t date you if you weren’t,” Roger grinned at his words and leaned in the extra few inches it took to kiss Brian. Brian’s hips rolled against his own, his tongue swept along Roger’s bottom lip. Roger wondered if maybe now, maybe right then and there he could just let it happen. Could give into the way Brian’s cock felt against his belly and let him do what he’d been fantasising about for ages. Brian rolled his hips with more purpose, so Roger slotted a thigh between Brian’s. Gave him something to rut against.

“Fuck,” breathed Brian, sleepy but desperate. He pressed a sloppy kiss to Roger’s lips and huffed unevenly against his neck when Roger reached between them and stroked his aching cock. He continued the rolling of his hips, the flimsy illusion that he might be actually fucking someone rather than thrusting into Roger’s hand. And when he came it was a quieted moan and a shiver as Roger wrung every last drop from him, quick to lick it off his hands. “God,” panted Brian.

“I love the faces you make,” said Roger.

“I must look ridiculous,” sighed Brian, catching his breath.

“You look sexy,” said Roger with an involuntary roll of his hips.

“Oh?” Brian was careful as he slipped a leg between Roger’s. “Want to try?”

“Okay,” breathed Roger, his hips moving with his words. He pressed hard against Brian’s bony thigh. Slow, deliberate thrusts that felt good, felt perfect. Until they didn’t. Until Roger rolled on his back with a gulp of air chasing him down. “Sorry—I’m sorry—”

“Don’t be sorry,” said Brian, his voice giving away his exhaustion. He draped an arm across Roger’s middle.

~~~

Roger scratched the sore patch under his bandages. He hated those bits of rubbed-raw skin he could never get to heal properly when he was bound up for so long. But he’d never complain. Not in front of Brian who was more than willing to tell him to just take them off. Freddie’d gone out with Mary for the night, so despite the tension still lingering between them Roger asked Brian over. If only to listen to music, or watch whatever came up on the telly. They sat in a stunted silence, Roger trying to casually itch the sore spot he knew must be bleeding while he sat a strange distance from Brian who had both hands on his knees.

There was a lot Roger wanted to say. A lot he wanted to promise Brian. First and foremost being that it wasn’t about him. That Freddie could see him mid-binding because he’d seen it before, because it was _Freddie_. But part of that had to be the admission that on some level he didn’t want Brian to know, to see, to touch any part of him that wasn’t what he wanted it to be. And he’d never convince Brian that it wasn’t due to a lack of trust, a lack of desire, that it was just fear. That Roger laid awake at night worrying how Brian would start to view him if Roger didn’t keep up with his outward masculinity. That he wondered on off beats if Brian was so headstrong about seeing him because of a morbid curiosity, a chance to ogle a freak. But all of that was far more awful to say than silence. So he let the crackling television speakers fill the room.

“Freddie coming home tonight?” said Brian, eyes straight ahead.

“Doubt it,” said Roger. He made a move to inch closer to Brian, but gave up and instead reached across his middle, hoping to casually scratch the itch of that irritated skin.

“What’re you,” Brian turned to him, “oh—oh, I think you’re bleeding.” Brian sat up and turned to him, eyes focused on the spot at the base of Roger’s ribs that was turning a brilliant pink.

“Oh—oh damn,” sighed Roger. “It—don’t worry it doesn’t hurt. Wait right here.”

Roger heard a few offers to help him but he ignored them all and shut himself in the bathroom. His top was patterned enough that if the stain didn’t come out fully it might still go unnoticed. He tugged it off over his head and hurried to turn the cold water on. He held the stain under the icy spray from the tap and once it’d soaked he stood up and avoided his gaze as he inspected himself in the mirror. The blood wasn’t much. It’d soaked through a single layer of bandaging and smeared on the skin just under the end of the bindings.

“Nothing horrible,” he muttered to himself. He grabbed a flannel, dipped it in the sink, and rubbed the blood off his exposed skin. He shimmied his bandages up just enough to try and do the same there. He rubbed the blood from where the bandages had pressed it deep into his skin, winced when he moved a bit too high up and his bloody skin caught on the flannel.

He took a breath and eased the bandages back down. And eyed himself in the mirror, eyed the way his face looked, the way his cheek bones rounded out, the way his jaw lacked a certain sharpness, the way his mouth was so small, so delicate, how big, round, and innocent his eyes were. He threw the flannel down in the water, let it splash against the top as it soaked. He gripped the porcelain of the sink and held his breath, shut his eyes, and tried to put it out of his mind. Just for a little while longer, just until Brian left or fell asleep, just until he could be alone and wallow in that horrible, aching feeling in his chest.

“You coming?” called Brian down the hall.

Roger stared down into the half-filled sink, flooded with cold water and his top, and felt his throat tighten. Most of him wanted to lock the door. To sink into the bath for hours on end and forget he had a body, forget how he looked, how he sounded, how he dressed, his own name. It would be so easy to yell at Brian through the door to go home, to leave him alone, to let him fester in his own misery for the night.

“Brian,” his voice was quiet and hoarse. Too quiet to be heard by Brian down the hall. He turned the doorknob and hesitated only for a moment before pulling the door open. “Brian.”

“Alright in there?”

“I don’t think so,” said Roger, his voice carrying a certain amount of exhaustion.

“What?” said Brian, mostly to himself. Roger heard him stirring and stumbled out in the hall to meet him. Brian’s eyes were quick to focus on the little patch of reddish-pink at the base of his ribs, lingering over the bandaging he so rarely saw. “You alright?”

“Yeah,” said Roger. He sounded about as convincing as he looked. “Can you help me with this?” Roger tugged gently on his wrapping.

“You want me to help?” Roger smirked at the surprise, the blush on Brian’s face, and nodded. “With…with…”

“Patching this up,” Roger put a hand over the blood stain.

“Sure—Sure of course—“ Brian cracked his knuckles with a bit of anxiety, nothing compared to the way Roger’s heart jumped into his throat. “Let me—I’ll get something to disinfect it—“

“You do that,” said Roger, passing him by and hurrying into the safety of his room. Even then, even with the sounds of Brian rifling through his medicine cabinet, he was tempted to shut his door. To thread his lock and to ask Brian to come back in the morning, if at all.

“Okay,” Brian appeared in the doorway with a handful of cottonpads, a bottle of their rubbing alcohol. And Roger counted about six plasters.

“Six of those?” said Roger with grin, his voice jumping up when he sat on his bed. “Are you planning on needing a few attempts at this?”

“Can’t be too careful,” said Brian as his foot shut the door for him. He set the fistfuls of supplies on Roger’s desk chair and pulled it to the bedside. Roger clutched his knees tight as his mattress dipped to accommodate Brian. And he couldn’t help wonder if it was too late to back out. “What first?”

Roger turned to look at him, just for a moment before muttering ‘the pins’. Brian’s hands were gentle, their touch light and forgiving when he reached for the pin at the base of Roger’s ribs. Roger held his breath as he slid the pin by his collarbone out of the fabric.

“We can just unwrap the bottom,” said Brian under his breath.

“Might as well do it all,” said Roger, as much to himself as to Brian.

Brian worked the bandage off like Roger’s ribs might break if he moved too fast, tugged on them too hard. He started up by Roger’s collarbones and worked slowly down. The whole process sped up as the bandage lost its grip on itself and sagged off Roger’s body. He couldn’t help the self conscious hand that tried, very hard to flatten himself out, to cover himself up.

But Brian paid that no mind. Made no mention of the way Roger’s hand pressed tightly to his chest, but instead worked to very gently peel the bandage from where it’d stuck to Roger’s bleeding skin.

“Sorry if this hurts,” said Brian. He peeled the bandage away and Roger found he couldn’t feel a thing. Numb all over. Exposed like a wounded animal and staving off panic, focusing on the way Brian didn’t focus on him. The way he did everything he could to make him feel like this was nothing, like this was never the big deal he feared it would be. “Okay, now this I think will _actually_ hurt,” said Brian with a little laugh as he soaked a cottonpad in the alcohol.

“Fuck,” hissed Roger, working hard to stay still, harder to cover his chest, as Brian whispered apologies and dabbed on the alcohol. When Roger did this himself he’d grab a handful of the alcohol, mash it into his skin and scream into a towel. Not the most gentle approach but at least that horrid stinging didn’t last so fucking long.

“Done!” said Brian, holding his hands up like Roger’d been timing him. “Alright now,” he turned to his chair full of the contents of their first aid kid and peeled two plasters from their paper wrappings. “Big scrape this is. I might need more than two.”

“It’s not so bad,” said Roger. His hand was clammy and tight as he pressed it into his chest.

“How’s it happen?”

“Drumming usually,” said Roger. “If I sweat and can’t get them off in time it’ll rub the skin clear off.”

“Shit,” mutter Brian as he pulled back from his surgical placement of the two plasters just below Roger’s ribs. Roger watched his eyes carefully. Watched the way they traced from his scrape to the bruises lining his sides, some yellow, most of them purple and tender. Brian reached a hand out for him, moving slow and steady, as if Roger might startle and run off. And Roger couldn’t help wonder if he ought to do just that.

Brian’s fingertips pressed to his side. He ran them over the thinning, tender skin of Roger’s bruises. Gentle as ever, careful not to press into the bad ones, the darker ones that Roger iced if he could.

“No one’s touched there in a while,” said Roger. The words slipped out, eager to fill the silence, and left him with a blush across his cheeks.

“No one?” said Brian, meeting his eyes but keeping his hand moving up and down his side.

“No one,” replied Roger. “Not since before…”

“Is it okay?” Brian looked about as unsure as Roger felt.

“It’s okay,” whispered Roger. “Feels nice actually.”

Brian grinned, meekly. Roger grinned back much the same. Brian shifted closer and the hand the had trailed up and down his side, moved up his back, across his aching shoulders and down his spine, brushing lightly across his skin, delicately, just enough for Roger to hum. Brian drew shapes across his back when he fell asleep, often. But it was through his clothes, through a few layers of secret and heavily guarded boundaries.

His eyes slipped closed as Brian kept on. The hand pressing tight to his chest slackened and slipped a bit. He heard Brian laugh, heard him ask if he was falling asleep, Roger muttered an ‘of course not’ but slurred his words. Brian leant into him, kissed his shoulder, rested his cheek there and continued dragging his fingertips over Roger’s back as light as he could.

They stayed there for minute or two, though it felt like a comfortable eternity to Roger, and then Brian decided he was dozing off too much and needed to sleep for his early class. Roger shimmied out of his trousers and curled up under the duvet in just his pants. Something he hadn’t been able to do in months. After pulling on something of Roger’s to sleep in, Brian switched off Roger’s lamps.

He wasted no time in wrapping Roger up, and Roger wasted no time leaning into him. Letting the heat radiating off of Brian keep him warm.

“Are the bruises always so bad?” whispered Brian into his hair.

“The more I wear it the worse it gets,” said Roger, his eyes closed and sleep threatening to take him at any moment.

“Maybe you could stop wearing it?” said Brian. “At least here, even at my flat. It’s not like you’ve got much to cover up anyway.”

“If you don’t mind it,” said Roger.

“I don’t mind it,” said Brian. Roger shivered at the feeling of Brian playing with his hair. “Don’t mind any of it. I actually…think I’m in love with you.”

“You what?” said Roger, backing up just enough to see Brian’s face, to meet his eyes.

“C’mon, Rog, you heard me.” Brian blushed so brilliantly, so quickly. Brimming with insecurity as always.

“I love you too,” said Roger with a breathy laugh. As if he hadn’t realised it until he’d said it out loud. And though Brian’s only response was a kiss to the top of Roger’s head, when Roger nestled back into him he could feel his heart beating faster.

~~~

“Can you pin it?” Roger held a safety pin out to Brian, and held his bandage taut on an awkward spot on his back, a spot he couldn’t quite reach. Brian was always so careful when he pinned them in place. It was the only amount of intimacy Roger could offer him, and he never took it for granted. Always pinned him in place with love and care and quickly withdrawn touch, always afraid of stepping over the lines he couldn’t see.

“Too tight?” said Brian.

“Just fine,” replied Roger. Brian helped him smooth out the wrinkles he couldn’t reach on his back.

“You sure you should wear all this to practice?” Brian’s fingertips ran over where Roger’s mostly-healed scrape had been. “Everyone knows now, it’s not an issue if—”

“Everyone knowing isn’t the point,” said Roger, leaning out of his touch. He heard Brian mutter an apology. Roger ignored it, focused on getting dressed and showing as little skin as possible while he did. He didn’t want to ask Brian to avert his eyes anymore, he felt like on some level they’d crossed that bridge and he wanted it to stay crossed, he refused to feel any more distant from Brian. But he couldn’t help but hope Brian closed his eyes anyway while he changed into his trousers at breakneck speed.

Mornings now had that feeling about them. A strained air of a lingering fight that never happened. They were full of attempts to get closer to each other, through any touch they could share, touches that Roger ultimate shooed away in favour of hiding himself in his bandages, in his clothes. Brian understood it too well to get upset, but in the mornings they never said more than a few words back and forth.

And both were always glad to have Freddie to break that tension. Some days it was by forcing Brian to wake up and help him fix the coffee machine, other times it was Brian and Roger’s collective effort to get him out of bed and into Roger’s van to get work done before noon. It lightened their emotional load, made the words said between them a little more civil, but the idea that distractions from their problems was the glue that held them together didn’t sit well with Roger. And it probably didn’t sit well with Brian either, but he’d never open up enough to ask.

“Maybe I should start fucking John, I feel like we’ve left him out,” said Freddie from Roger’s passenger seat, breaking the silence of their drive to the studio.

“I think he’s quite happy fucking Veronica,” said Roger. “Better luck next time.”

“Poor things the only one that doesn’t drive into the studio with us, he must feel like a proper middle child,” said Freddie.

“What would any of us know about that?” laughed Brian from the back.

“They’re such tortured souls aren’t they?” said Freddie turning around to face Brian, knocking around the gear shift as he went and ignoring Roger’s yelling about it. “Deaky’s quite a tortured soul, we ought to force him to stay over with us more often.”

Roger scoffed. “Tortured soul is the last phrase I’d use to describe him.”

“Then maybe we should torture his soul some?” said Freddie, adjusting to sit cross legged in his seat. “Can’t be a real musician without a bit of torture.”

“A light torturing?” offered Roger.

“Please don’t torture John out of the band,” groaned Brian.

“I said a _light_ torturing,” repeated Roger. “If The Spanish Inquisition were The Spanish ‘I hate to ask this, but’.”

“Iron maiden with none of the spikes,” added Freddie.

“We really can’t afford to find a new bassist,” said Brian, holding back a laugh.

John was already at the studio by the time the three of them drove in. He scolded them all like a grade school teacher and added if they were late one more time he’d fire them.

The recording finished a week or so before. All of their vocals had been recorded and the last of Brian’s complicated solos as well. So they were on to mixing what little they had left. It wasn’t unusual for Brian to assert that the guitar needed more volume, more attention than the rhythm. Brian was the guitarist, he wanted all his playing intricacies to be heard, just like the rest of them. But something about the way he commanded it this time, the way he nitpicked Roger’s drumming, felt a little more personal.

Roger thought letting Brian in just a bit, letting him wrap his head around the bandages, around what was underneath them, would tide him over for a bit longer. But he knew he still kept him at arms length. He’d seen under the bandages sure, but Roger was so careful to keep it from every really happening again. So careful to keep as much of his body a secret. He knew his bickering wasn’t about the album, so he gave up, shouted something about needing a break and hurried outside.

He fumbled with his lighter and held the flame to the cigarette between his lips, fingers trembling just a bit in the cold. He clenched his jaw and took a long, calming drag. One moment of peace before the studio’s back door opened.

“There you are,” said Freddie.

“Not in the mood, Fred,” said Roger.

“I don’t mind,” said Freddie, happily ignoring Roger’s request for solitude. He let the door shut and leant against the wall by Roger. “Y’know Rog, maybe I’m just seeing one side of this but…you and Brian seem to…hate each other these days?”

Roger bit his tongue and blinked in quick succession to get rid of the tears welling in his eyes. He took another long, shaky drag off his cigarette. “It’s only getting worse.”

“What’s the issue?”

“What’s _always_ the fucking issue, Freddie,” spat Roger, his voice hiccuping a bit.

Freddie let Roger sniffle a bit and pressed his shoulder to his before he broke the silence with, “maybe you weren’t ready for this.”

“That’s not it,” Roger wiped his cheek.

“What _is_ it then, Rog? I know it’s not him.”

“He doesn’t know that. Doesn’t fucking believe me anymore, why should he.” Roger brought the cigarette back up to his lips but hesitated on a shaky breath in and gave up, threw the fag onto the wet ground and stepped his heel into it. “I’ve been promising it’s nothing to do with him for months, and…god he’s so tired. I know he’s tired of me. I’m tired of me.”

“He’s not tired of _you,_ he may not like this situation, but he loves you,” said Freddie. “And you don’t owe him anything you don’t want to give him.”

“Y’know, before Brian, there was this girl, this stranger, I would’ve fucked her without blinking. Had she not thrown me out that is. Before him I didn’t fucking care and now it’s all I think about. All fucking day and night I’m wondering what I look like and what he’s seeing of me and what he thinks of what he’s seeing and what that means, and what I am in his eyes.”

“Have you said that to him?”

“Does it sound like I have?” spat Roger. Freddie was silent for a moment, mercifully stopping himself from giving Roger more advice along the lines of ‘just talk to him’. As if it were so easy, as if he hadn’t tried to get it out in a way that made sense.

“I think you two could use a proper date,” said Freddie. “It’s been ages since you went out, I think you ought to go out, have fun together.”

“Honestly,” said Roger behind a teary laugh, “I don’t think he’ll want to. Not with me.”

“Oh, Rog…” Freddie rested a hand on his shoulder as Roger stared up at the sky and blinked back the tears he refused to let fall.

“Hey Roger, I—“ Brian flew out of the doorframe, sliding forward by handle, and cut himself off at the sight of Roger. “What’s the matter?”

“He—” began Freddie.

“Can we go to dinner?” said Roger, huffing around a sob.

“Wh—right now? It’s not even noon.”

“Doesn’t have to be now,” said Roger, clenching his teeth, trying to keep a full meltdown from getting the better of him. Not here, not at the studio. Freddie muttered something about mixing or vocals or the album and slipped back inside. Brian closed the door behind him and put both hands on Roger’s shoulders.

“Yes,” said Brian with a furrowed brow, “we can have dinner—What’s got you so worked up?” Roger shrugged. “Is it because I said that your drums were sloppy—I didn’t mean it, I was just—”

“It’s not that,” said Roger, though he couldn’t help smile thinking of Brian apologising for calling his drums sloppy when Roger called his guitar playing much worse over the years. “Sorry, I’m getting in my own head.”

“About what?”

Roger sighed, stared at him for a moment. “Not worth it, not now anyway, we’ve got the album.”

“We’ve got time—” began Brian.

“Dinner,” said Roger. “A proper date. Soon as you can, okay?”

“Oh…kay,” said Brian.

“Okay,” repeated Roger. He opened the door to the studio and waited for Brian to follow him inside.

~~~

Roger enjoyed the cliche romanticism of it. Of Brian picking him up for dinner, going out to eat together again, watching the way Brian did his best not to warn Roger of the health risks as he salted everything on his plate, and kept his mouth shut about animal cruelty when Roger ordered meat. It was good to get out, to breathe in fresh air with each other, to have fun in a new place together, but it couldn’t last. Once the bill came, once it was time to go home, Roger knew all that shit would come back up.

Brian would ask if he wanted to stay over, Roger would say yes but nothing more, Brian would promise he was fine with that, Roger would change clothes in the bathroom and arch out of Brian’s touches and promise it wasn’t Brian’s fault, and Brian would forgive him and quietly, internally decide it was his own fault, and they’d fall asleep together. Unsatisfied and unhappy, as they always did.

“I’ve got an idea,” said Brian. He held two of Roger’s fingers as they walked, neither of them brave enough to go for a full hand in public.

“What’s that?” said Roger, tightening his grip.

“Sky’s so clear tonight, we could go to the roof of your flat, split the last of that shitty wine we bought?” offered Brian with his eyes on the pavement in front of them.

Roger grinned, his cheeks red from the cold and adoration. “That’d be good. I’ve always wanted to stargaze with a professional.”

“I wouldn’t say professional,” said Brian, humble as ever.

“I would,” said Roger.

Roger found a blanket, Brian found the wine and a mug to share it with, and they hurried up the metal stairways to the roof. Roger had been up there twice. Both time were to smoke with Freddie when one of their neighbours had begun to complain about the smell and threatened to call the cops. She’d long since moved out and the two of them hadn’t been up since. It was just as quaint as Roger remembered.

The red brick of the short fencing was worn in comfortably. The light from the city gave it a certain glow of warmth and welcome.

“It’s nice up here,” said Brian, coming up a step behind Roger.

“It is,” said Roger. “Cold but nice.”

“That’s what the blanket’s for,” said Brian.

“Thought that’s what the wine was for,” teased Roger.

They sat, sharing the blanket, curled up next to each other, against one edge of the rooftop, their backs pressing firmly into the brick. Brian poured the wine into the mug they passed back and forth until the bottle was empty. He pointed out constellations, though the glow of London made some of them harder to spot. Roger asked for his own constellation, Leo, which Brian reminded him, would only rise during his season.

“I have to wait until _summer_ to see it,” said Roger. He passed the mug of wine back to Brian.

“That’s sort of how they work, Rog,” laughed Brian. “That’s why it’s based on when you were born.”

“Where is it now?” said Roger.

“Opposite side of earth,” said Brian.

“Along with yours I suppose.” Roger looked up and watched Brian carefully as he took a sip. “Y’know I checked that big fuck off zodiac book Freddie’s got. Apparently leos and cancers aren’t compatible.”

“Am I a cancer?” said Brian lazily.

“According to Freddie, yes,” said Roger.

“C’mon. Don’t tell me you buy into that shite,” Brian looked down at him with a quickly fading smile.

“I don’t,” Roger sighed and turned his eyes back to the sky. “But we aren’t compatible, are we.”

“Of course we are,” said Brian. He sounded serious enough for Roger to turn to him. He looked serious enough for Roger to feel guilty for saying it, even offhand and insincere. “D’you think we’re incompatible?”

“No,” Roger tried to laugh at himself, tried to get a smile out of Brian, and failed, “no—sorry—of course I don’t think that.”

“Then why would you say it?”

“Just…because of…” Roger didn’t have to say it outright, Brian knew what he was referring to.

“That’s not what defines compatibility,” said Brian. “We’re compatible in every other way—And I’ll bet once we get _there_ we’ll be plenty compatible.”

“You think?” said Roger, leaning into him.

“Of course,” said Brian with a shy smile that he hid behind the mug of wine. He took the last sip.

“Do you think about it a lot?” said Roger. Brian stammered for a moment, his cheeks turned a brilliant shade of pink.

“I think about it the normal amount,” said Brian awkwardly, a little giddy from the wine.

“I think about it a lot,” said Roger.

“You do?” Brian turned to him with wide, surprised eyes. Roger just nodded. He could see the obvious question on the tip of Brian’s tongue. ‘If you want it, why don’t you have it’. But Roger was in no mood to iron out every detail of his answer. Too tedious, too hard to explain, too pointless. Before Brian could ask anything more, Roger kissed him, and tasted the remnant of the old wine they shared on Brian’s lips. On his tongue.

And he felt Brian’s hand move under the blanket, across his thigh, resting on his hip while Roger’s hand clawed at Brian’s shirt. He moaned into Brian’s mouth, and felt Brian buck his hips a bit. Pointlessly and uselessly, no real goal, just so full of need. Roger hummed, trailed his fingers down Brian’s chest and pulled away when he wrapped his hands around Brian’s belt. He wanted to watch Brian’s face twist up in virginal pleasure the way it always did when Roger touched him.

He was good at this now. Good at getting Brian off with just his hands, with just his mouth. So well versed at it that Brian came with another thirty odd seconds of Roger’s well-practised ministrations. Brian stifled a moan in Roger’s shoulder and took in sharp breaths as he came down. He kissed Roger’s jaw, his cheek, his lips, and muttered a quiet ‘I love you’ at the corner of Roger’s mouth.

“Your turn?” said Brian. His eyes full of hope and worry. Brian always offered. Every time Roger got him off he’d be ready to reciprocate, barely able to contain his disappointment when Roger said no. He hated that look of sadness, guilt, maybe even embarrassment that Brian always wore when Roger had to turn him away. So this time, he didn’t.

“My turn,” said Roger. He kept his eyes locked on Brian’s as his hands blindly unbuttoned his trousers beneath the blanket, as Brian’s hand found its way past the waistband of his pants, and his fingertips pressed against him aimlessly. Roger shifted his knees apart just a bit and let his eyes flutter closed. Brian worked in small circles, Roger buried his face in Brian’s neck, his fingernails in his sleeve.

“Good?” mumbled Brian. Roger nodded against him and sighed when Brian sped up just a bit. He held his breath, clenched his jaw, and took a deep breath out, panting once before lurching up to meet Brian’s lips. For all his inability to appreciate it, Brian was good with his hands, despite the lack of confidence behind it. He ran a hand down Brian’s side, bucked his hips into Brian’s hand and moaned for more.

And leaned back a bit, and took Brian with him when he lied down, the blanket tangled around them both. Brian pressed inside him, just barely, softly at first. Then deeper when Roger asked for it. Brian muttered a few ‘oh god’s a few ’so perfect’s that Roger couldn’t bring himself to listen to, as he kissed down Roger’s jaw, his neck, across his collarbones and down his chest. lingering at the tender spots at the base of his ribs, and tugging his trousers a bit as his tongue dragged along his soft belly.

Roger looked up at the sky, the glowing, brilliantly dark blue sky, and took in a slow breath. He could do it. Or rather, he could let Brian do it. He could focus on the sky and focus on the feeling, and, at least for the moment, forget all the possible aftermath. Brian’s mouth kissed lower, his hands tugged hard on Roger’s trousers. He gave hints for Roger to lift his hips, to make dragging the fabric down easier. But Roger ignored those hints.

Brian was gentle still, and held Roger’s waistband to the side, tugged the unforgiving fabric of his trousers away, and kept his kisses moving ever closer. And he damn near made it. He got so close, so wonderfully close before Roger called out ‘stop’ and caught a view of the horrific scene. Brian between his legs, his hips more exposed than he ever liked them to be, the blanket only half-covering what he wished it’d hide.

“What’s the matter?” said Brian with his arms looped around Roger’s thighs.

“I can’t,” said Roger with a whimper. Brian stilled where he was, just a for a moment, then sat back on his heels.

“I’m sorry I thought you wanted me to,” he held a hand out for Roger to lift himself up with. Roger took it.

“I did,” he shivered and quickly buttoned his trousers back up. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry,” said Brian. Each time he said it it lost a little more believability. “But…but is it something I’m doing?”

“No of course not—” began Roger.

“Because if you’re sparing my feelings please stop,” his voice cracked, “it’s not doing me any good, I don’t think it’s doing you any good either.”

“I’m not sparing your feelings—”

“Then what’s the problem, Rog,” said Brian, cracking his knuckles nervously. “I don’t care what the trouble is but I feel very…very confused all the time about what you want from me.”

“I know,” Roger sighed deep, “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry,” said Brian with more force, “talk to me.”

“I…” he’d never once tried to practice communicating all the muddled up nonsense he felt about this, he never thought he’d be asked outright, and he could feel the words coming out wrong before he’d even said them, “I’m worried you won’t love me anymore.”

“Why the fuck would—what?” said Brian, blinking in aggravated confusion.

“It’s easy for you, you are what I expected. I—I know I can’t fulfill any of the fantasies you used to have about me and I know,” he put up his hands to stop Brian interrupting, “I know you say you’re fine with what I am but we don’t know if you’re fine yet, and I don’t want—I don’t want you to see me—to be with me and decide it’s not what you wanted in the end. I’ve got my own issues—sometimes I can’t stand the sight of myself—and I think maybe those feelings get worse around you because I don’t...I don’t want you to touch me and hate me too.” He took a deep shaking breath and felt relief flood him. It wasn’t his most elegant speech but he got his feelings out. Something he’d failed to do for months now.

“Is that what you think of me?” said Brian.

“What?”

“You think I’ll…what? Change my opinion of you, or my view of you? You think I’ll stop loving you?” There was no disguising the hurt in his voice.

“I don’t know,” was all Roger could offer.

“You care about this a lot more than I ever did. I love you, and I know what you come with, and I try,” his voice wobbled, “I try very hard to make sure you know that.” Roger could hear the lump in his throat, the tightness of his voice. He shuffled, like he might say something, and ultimately gave up, stood, and muttered, “I’ll be downstairs, I’m…tired.”

Roger watched him clamber down the metal steps back to their fire escape. He took his time collecting the bottle they’re brought up, the mug too, and wrapped it all in the blanket before following him inside. Brian must’ve considered leaving a few times judging by the one shoe in the living room, the other in the kitchen, and his keys on Roger’s desk, just inside his door. But by the time Roger found him he was putting around his bedroom, finding something to sleep in.

Roger did the same, both in silence, shifting in and out of their clothes and mumbling quiet apologies when they ran into each other. Roger draped his bandage on the back of his chair and sat on his bed, watching the way Brian paced very carefully. Folding his clothes like it mattered, straightening things on Roger’s desk like they mattered. Anything to avoid Roger.

“I love you,” said Roger, hoping to remind him of it before he got too lost in his own thoughts.

Brian paused his needless wandering and replied, “I love you too.”

“Can we just sleep and start over tomorrow,” said Roger.

“I,” Brian huffed, “I guess.”

“I don’t want you to be upset, that’s all,” added Roger.

“I—How can I not be upset?” scoffed Brian. “Sleep won’t fix that.” Brian tugged the chain on the lamp by Roger’s door, the only light left was the dim glow from Roger’s bedside lamp that Brian used to stumble to Roger’s bed. He sat by him, pressed their thighs together and looked straight ahead into the dark abyss of Roger’s open closet together.

“I’m sorry we can’t have sex—”

“That’s not why I’m fucking upset,” snapped Brian. “We never have to have sex, but I—I wish it wasn’t because you don’t trust me enough to sleep with you and not change my view of who you are.”

“I do trust you enough,” said Roger. Brian looked at him with eyes full of doubt. “Really, I do.”

“You just said you’re afraid I won’t love you.”

“So what?” said Roger, a little more kick to his words, to his tone. “That’s my worst fear, I never said it was realisitic…You’ve never treated me any different. It’s not rational, it’s all my own past, my own anxiety getting the better of me.” He was still scared of the worst case scenario, but he knew on some level it would never get to that point. And saying it out loud, watching the stress ease off of Brian’s expression only convinced him further.

“You mean that?”

Roger shifted closer. “Of course I mean it.” He reached up to brush away the curls around Brian’s face. “And as much as I turn you away, I do want you. So bad I can hardly stand it anymore.”

“Oh?” said Brian, an adorable blush blooming on his cheeks.

“Oh,” repeated Roger. Brian’s eyes closed as Roger wrapped another curl around his finger. He couldn’t resist him, he’d never really been able to once the fire had been lit. So kind and soft, with such strong features that had never matched his personality. Roger’s perfect compliment. He wondered then, how he’d been so afraid of him, afraid of the man falling asleep while he played with his hair. He had his own problems, his own issues with himself, but Brian could never make them worse, in fact he could only make them better.

Roger moved his hand from Brian’s tangle of curls down to his cheek, and when Brian’s eyes opened, Roger leant in slow, and kissed him slower. Brian smiled against his lips, very briefly before parting them again, giving Roger’s tongue room enough to move against his own. Roger’s hand left his face, meandered down his side, to his hips, and moved gentle over his cock.

“Ah,” Brian pulled back.

“What’s ‘ah’?” laughed Roger.

“What’re you doing?” said Brian, serious as a heart attack.

“I want to try again,” said Roger, losing a bit of his confidence.

“We don’t have to, don’t—don’t do it to make me feel better.”

“I’m not. I’m,” he took a breath, “conquering my fears.” He took Brian’s hand off his hip, and guided it between his parted legs. Humming when Brian touched him in earnest, and lurching forward to kiss him, harder and more needy this time.

His heart fluttered, every nerve ending tingled, and every little motion from Brian’s hand sent shocks through him. He couldn’t help the noises he made and was grateful when Brian would cover them with his own. He put a hand on the back of Brian’s neck, tugged him into a kiss, and dragged him down onto the mattress with him. Brian shimmied between his legs gracelessly and apologised a few times over for knocking his knee against Roger’s thigh and accidentally resting his forearm on Roger’s hair while he did it. Roger promised it was okay, better than okay, endearing.

The way he touched Roger was endearing too. So careful but easy and natural too. Roger gripped his bony bicep a little too tight when Brian pressed two fingers in him and hooked on that spot Roger loved so much.

“Can I try with my mouth again?”

“Are you sure?” panted Roger, hips rocking on Brian’s hand. “You won’t get too…freaked out?”

“I won’t,” laughed Brian. “Will you?”

“I don’t think so…Try it,” said Roger.

Brian kissed his lips, then his forehead. Then his jaw, his neck. He rucked up Roger’s shirt and kissed along his chest, along the bruises and the scrapes and softness Roger hated so much before moving down to his hips. He bit and sucked marks there while he tugged Roger’s shorts off.

“Just don’t look down,” said Brian with his hands on Roger’s inner thighs. Roger had no intention of doing that, no part of him wanted to watch what Brian was doing. He closed his eyes, gripped his sheets tight, and only relaxed when Brian’s mouth covered him. It was work, real work to keep his mind on the sensation rather than optics of it. But eventually, it felt good enough that Roger could breathe, could forget all he hated about himself and could enjoy the way Brian’s tongue moved, the way his fingers moved. Good enough that he arched off the bed and accidentally squeezed his thighs around Brian’s head when an orgasm surprised him just as much as Brian.

“I’m sorry!” said Roger, knowing he’d snapped his legs together too hard.

“It’s okay,” said Brian, sitting up and massaged his left ear. His mouth, his chin, glistening from where he’d been. “Why’re you staring, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” said Roger, surprised he was telling the truth. “Nothing’s wrong.” He reached up for a fistful of Brian’s shirt and pulled him down into a sloppy kiss. And rolled his hips up against Brian’s a few times, to hear him whine, before he reached between them and stroked him, and shoved his shorts down, and stroked him and looked away as he guided Brian in.

Brian muttered a shaky ‘you okay’ once he was full seated. No one more surprised than Roger when he responded ‘I’m fine’. Brian kept most of his weight off Roger, his eyes drifting over the bruises every time he gave in and laid on him for just a moment or two. But Roger didn’t mind either way. That feeling, that hypnotic full feeling, it’d been so long since he had it. So long since he’d wanted it this badly. He couldn’t look, couldn’t bear to see or even imagine the point where they connected, but he was free to get carried away by the feeling of it, by Brian.

In the end it was enough to get Roger off one more time. Brian, came soon after. He spilled across Roger’s thigh and apologised as soon as he’d caught his breath for the mess he made. Roger whispered and promised he didn’t care as he wiped it off with the shorts Brian’d torn off him earlier.

In a sweaty tangle of limbs and laboured breathing, they got comfortable in the bed, under the sheets, away from the chill that ran through Roger and Freddie’s flat constantly.

“You gonna get sick?” said Brian with a tired laugh as he reached and turned Roger’s bedside lamp off.

“Not this time,” breathed Roger. He nuzzled into the crook of Brian’s neck. And wrapped an arm around his middle, and a leg around his hips.

“Night Rog,” said Brian into his hair. He ran a hand up the back of Roger’s shirt, traced little patterns against his skin. Roger did the same for him and neither stopped until they’d fallen asleep.

There was more to be considered, more to be overcome later on. Insecurities and warped views of himself Roger still had to get a lid on and get a hold of. But it’d be much easier knowing the person he loved most would be there through it. Would suffer the worst from him and still stay.

And when they woke the next morning, when they could kiss and touch with no restrictions or worrying over each other, Roger felt like he could breathe again. Like a weight he hadn’t really felt before was gone now. He could enjoy what Brian had to offer, finally. Could indulge him in the mornings, and get that wonderful feeling reciprocated without panic, without fear of the world ending with Brian’s touch.

“You feeling alright?” said Brian, his fingertips brushing Roger’s pink cheeks as Brian rolled his thigh between Roger’s, getting the last few waves of pleasure of him before they had to get up for the day.

“Never better,” said Roger. “I’m really…really happy with you, y’know that?”

Brian’s fluid motion of his thigh stuttered a bit but never stopped. “Now I do.”


	8. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow! So it has been awhile! A lot of health things came up and it just took me much longer than I wanted to write this one. Sorry for that! But, all in all I want to thank everyone for such positive reception on this! Trans stories can be so polarising and it's obviously a topic very personal to me so thanks for such sweet comments this whole fic!! It's been a joy to write, and I'm sure I'd like to do more like this!! Again, so so sorry for the huge delay but it's here now and boy is it long haha!!! Comment if you enjoy please and thank you so so so so much for reading <3

On the edge of financial ruin, that’s when the news hit. When the four of them were gearing up to sell old instruments, polish up their horrendously empty CVs and ask their parents for their childhood bedrooms back. All except John who had two mouths to feed back home. All cramped in that elevator when the call came through that their single hit number one. The song they made, the song they would get paid for, the song that would bring them back from the precipice.

After they jumped so hard the elevator stopped, they got around to their debts. John had the most after the baby, Roger was next in line since his money was harder to come by seeing as Brian and Freddie got most of the royalties. Freddie bought a flat in town, John bought a townhome, modest but roomy. And Brian and Roger bought a place in the country. A big back garden was what Roger really wanted. A great open space that was just his own, free from the prying eyes of the press that had started to hound them.

But, if he had to choose, his favourite purchase wasn’t his new car, or his new house, it was his new chest. Newly scarred up and flat just how he’d always imagined it should be. According to his surgeon, he’d done enough damage bandaging himself up every day to nearly void the surgery. He didn’t mind the way the scars felt under his finger tips, the way they were darker than he’d imagined, considering he’d nearly made it impossible to qualify for the surgery at all. But Queen’s drummer being in hospital was a story in the papers.

The story he and Brian, with the plotting help of Freddie and John, gave their manager was that he had a bad case of appendicitis, nearly ruptured and left him bed-bound for awhile. That was the official press release. Brian offered giving their manager the full truth, seeing as there may be times they’d need his help to cover other slip-ups up. But Roger brushed it off. He’d gone so far with no help keeping himself a secret, he certainly didn’t need his babysitter doing the work for him.

No he was perfectly content to live in anonymity when it came to his manager, the fans too. They saw one side of him that was carefully curated. The rest of him was free to lay in his back garden and let the sun help fade the scars on his chest. He could fall asleep in the sun like that, one of his favourite hobbies in the months prior when lifting his arms up was an impossible feat.

“You sleeping?” asked Brian, he’d gone inside for his book but the drowsy sun made Roger nearly forget he’d left.

He looked up at him from his chaise and grinned. “Give me a few more minutes and I will be.” Brian smiled down at him and flopped back into the patio chair he’d taken up residence in earlier, “what took so long?”

“Oh—paper got delivered, it scared the daylights out of me, whoever dropped this one off whacked it against the front door so hard I thought it was being kicked in,” laughed Brian.

“Paper?” Roger sat up. “Who get’s the paper at fucking—at three in the afternoon?”

“Dunno,” Brian shrugged.

“Where is it?”

“Table by the door,” said Brian. “Just a newspaper.”

“I got the paper myself this morning,” said Roger, hurrying to stand.

“Well, I don’t know what act of aggression or conspiracy you think a second paper would be, but it’s just newsprint,” said Brian.

“I’ll be the judge of that,” said Roger, only half joking as he rushed inside and meandered through their home for the table by the front door where Roger left his keys and Brian always left his wallet. A pet peeve of Roger’s that he didn’t fully understand having. The paper rolled up and banded on the table was thin, _much_ too thin to be the paper. “This isn’t the paper!” called Roger, unsure if Brian could hear him. He tore the rubber band off as he took blind steps back to the back garden, the paper unrolled in his hands.

“Well what is it?” said Brian, still out sitting in the sun.

“Tabloid,” said Roger, looking at a headline of some more obscure royal out drinking. “Who’s sending us an emergency tabloid?”

“What’s the headline?” said Brian.

Roger sat back on his chaise. “I don’t know, one of those younger royals is high or something, not exactly interesting news that…”

“Is it a new tabloid?” said Brian. “Trying to get their name out there by pelting doors with their swill?”

“Suppose,” Roger opened up the newsprint, let his eyes wander over the smaller headlines. Members of parliament misusing funds, snapshots of actresses leaving pubs with married men, par for the course. Until he saw a familiar name. With so many names being dropped and littered around, Roger figured at first it must be some celebrity publicist he’d seen in a similar tabloid before, but with a quick glance back he recognised the name not as a grapevine acquaintance, but an old classmate. Not just that, but an old boyfriend.

“Anything good?” asked Brian absently.

_I know Queen drummer ‘Roger Taylor’s real name._

“Fuck,” said Roger flatly.

“Fuck what?” said Brian, not looking up from his book.

“Fuck,” Roger sat up, “fuck,” he hurried to Brian’s side, handed him off the paper, frantically pointing at the headline.

“Fuck,” said Brian. “Shit—who is this?”

“It’s—the bloke I—from secondary, back in Truro—he made me swear never to tell a soul—and—now he’s…” stammered Roger as he stared over Brian’s shoulder and let his eyes scan the words printed under the salacious hook in bold above it. He only caught short, incomplete phrases. Things like ‘all girls’ school’, ‘confused about herself’, ‘lied to me’, ‘lied to most of the boys’, and a few fleeting glimpses of his old name. He snatched the paper from Brian’s grip, not wanting him to read anymore of those mismatched pronouns and horribly obtrusive uses of that old name of his.

“It’s okay—” said Brian as he watched Roger’s tight grip on the paper crumple up the edges and center.

“How?!” screamed Roger. “How can he—why would he want this, why would he—”

“Money, it’s just money, everyone’ll assume this is fake, he’ll get paid, the world will forget, and we’ll all move on,” said Brian.

“That’s fucking easy for you to say,” spat Roger, his hands sweating around the paper he was close to tearing.

“It’s easy for me to say because it’s true,” said Brian. He eased the paper out of Roger’s grip and folded it up with as much care as it was worth. “No one,” Brian held the crumpled paper in his hand, “ _no one_ is going to believe this.”

“What makes you so sure?”

Brian scoffed. “Are you kidding? Rog, this is some—some _nobody_ trying to convince Britain that not only did he sleep with you in secondary school but you were a girl at the time—”

“But it’s true—well—in a sense, it’s true anyway,” interrupted Roger.

“But it doesn’t sound true,” said Brian, calmly and clearly. “This sounds very similar to those nutters who talk about how they were abducted by aliens.”

“Maybe,” Roger took a deep breath and sat back on the chaise, “but someone must’ve—someone felt the need to pelt our door with it.”

“People know our address, they throw any shit with our names on it up the walk,” said Brian with a shrug. “They did the same when that gossip column printed that _outrageous_ issue saying we were living together,” he added with a grin. Roger breathed deep and grinned back. Brian reached a hand out and rested it on Roger’s knee. “It’ll be fine, I promise.”

“You’re sure?” said Roger.

“I’m positive,” said Brian. “This’ll be a funny footnote—like when they printed that Freddie’s chest hair was a toupee, just for laughs, I’m sure of it.”

Roger laid back on the chaise, slow and tired, his hands sweaty and tight around the arm rests. “You’re sure?” he repeated.

“Roger, did you remember any of the other headlines you just read?” laughed Brian. “It’s a tabloid, it’s only purpose is wrapping up fish and the occasional bad photo of someone who’s meant to be gorgeous.”

“Yeah,” said Roger through a deep breath, his eyes trained on the hedges at the far side of their garden.

“How about tea? The fancy shite Freddie bought for us on his trip,” offered Brian.

“How about a sedative,” said Roger, tiredly rubbing his eyes.

“I’ll put the kettle on,” said Brian. Roger grinned up at him as he passed, but quickly returned to his blank stare that bored through the hedges.

He knew it was an eventuality. He knew that with classmates so vocal about their disgust for his new name and new pronouns, a few of them were bound to capitalise on the whole affair and give a few gossip columns a ‘tell all’ story about his adolescence in Truro. But as much as he’d expected to see it plastered across the new circuit for days, he also hoped everyone would keep their mouths shut. At least until he was old and established enough to brush it off as ridiculous. Not right then, at the front of their promising career that, months ago had been in shambles. Everything felt so precarious and fleeting, the tabloid sitting on the garden table a few feet from him might as well’ve been the final nail in the coffin that crumbled the veneer of success they uneasily rested on.

“Drink this,” Brian handed Roger a mug, “the label says it’s meant to be calming,” he added with a pat to Roger’s head. “Not thinking too hard are you?”

“Please,” scoffed Roger, “have I ever been one to overthink?” Brian broke out in a laugh, Roger joined him, though his grip around his mug of tea was still too tight.

~~~

He hadn’t had much experience drumming without the constrictive bandages around his middle, it was only the second week of recording. They’d pushed it late to accommodate Roger’s recovery time, during which there was no chance of drumming much less lifting a fork to his mouth. But now that he was finally back and finally not at risk of tearing any stitches or sewn up muscle, he could breathe. He could play and not feel the bandages rubbing his skin raw and soaking up the sweat. Could reach and stretch for cymbals and drums without it sending shooting pains up his sides and through his lungs.

It almost made him regret waiting so long to do it. Of course if he’d forced the band into a hiatus for recovery before their previous album, they would’ve gone under. Even so he wished he could go back, play some of the high-energy, sweaty pub gigs with no bandages, no constriction just raw, animalistic drumming pounding out the beat behind Freddie.

“Having a good time up there?” said John between takes.

“Does it show?” laughed Roger, wiping the sweat off his forehead.

“You’re playing like you’re a few lines in,” laughed John.

“I feel like I am too,” said Roger through a grin.

“Ready to go again?” said Freddie over the loudspeaker.

“When you are,” replied Roger. He caught a glimpse of Brian behind the glass, sitting at the soundboard, chin in his hand, grinning at Roger softly. Roger grinned back shyly, not wanting the engineer to see.

Though Roger was most excited and eager for the surgery, Brian was a close second. When he voiced that, months and months prior, Roger flew off the handle accusing him of hating his body as it was then. Brian let him go on his tirade and once he’d calmed down explained he was tired of counting the hours until Roger could unpin his bandages, tired of rubbing salve on the intense bruises and hoping they’d have time to heal before their next outing. And in the months following his recovery, Brian had been all smiles watching Roger do the simplest things. Roger’d always tease him for being so mushy but he didn’t make it hard to see how glad he was someone shared in his excitement to almost the same level.

On the next take Roger’s stick slipped out of his hand and whacked John in the back of the head. John, being a professional, didn’t ever actually fall off beat just missed a note and laughed into his microphone before Freddie called the whole thing off.

“Did it hurt?” said Roger as soon as the playback stopped.

“No, I’m fine,” said John as he rubbed where the stick hit him, just behind the temple.

“Roger, no sprees,” said Freddie over the loudspeaker. “If you need a break just ask for it, darling.”

“It was an accident,” laughed Roger. He shimmied out from behind his kit and from around the noise cancelling acrylic, “but I won’t say no to a break.”

“We could all use one I think,” said Freddie. He stood, stretched out his back, Brian did the same, and somewhere in the silent deadened sound-booth they must’ve given the engineer a break as well, judging by the way he stood and walked off at least. Brian and John opted for coffee breaks, Roger stole the lighter Brian had confiscated from him and went out for a smoke break with Freddie, the warm air and sun doing them both a little good.

“You’re looking tan,” said Freddie, “looks very strange on you—reminds me of when Brian nearly switches races after that beach trip with his old mates.”

“Thank you?” laughed Roger. “I’m spending a lot of time now lying out in the back garden. Before now I really don’t think any part of my torso had seen the sun. I was practically translucent.”

“I don’t know if I ever offered you a proper congratulations on that but, really,” Freddie took a long drag off his cigarette, “really I’m very happy for you.”

“Fred, you visited me in hospital, you and John both did, balloons and everything,” said Roger with a laugh, “I know you’re happy.”

“Well, I was making sure, y’know visiting in hospital is more—it’s more about the recovery, I’m specifically congratulating you on the results,” he reached a hand out, ran it across Roger’s chest, “it’s very flat.”

“That was the idea.”

“I didn’t tell you this so you wouldn’t worry but before you went in, I had a nightmare you came out of surgery and they’d given you implants,” said Freddie. He’d only barely got the words out before Roger burst into a laugh and coughed on the smoke invading his lungs. Freddie patted his back and laughed an equally wheezing laugh.

“Thank you for sparing me from that very realistic concern,” said Roger as he caught his breath.

“That’s what I’m here for,” grinned Freddie. “So you’ll be playing our shows shirtless now right? All the women in the audience keep screaming for it.”

Roger smiled, but not as wide. “The scars.”

“So what?”

“It’s pretty clear what they are, and how I got them,” said Roger as he tapped the ash off.

“Oh please,” Freddie said with a roll of his wrist, “we can lie to the press about that, say you had some…tumour or…well—let’s think about it.”

“Oi er, speaking of all… _that_ ,” Roger took the last drag off his cigarette and let it fall on the pavement where he stomped it out, “a tabloid’s got a hold of the story.”

“What story,” Freddie didn’t look up from the the scratch on the back of his hand he was inspecting.

“My story,” said Roger with an awkward laugh, “last week someone pelted our front door with this tabloid and one of the smaller stories was about me in secondary school.”

“What—Who—Who—what did it say and—who would—” Freddie stammered.

“Old boyfriend,” interrupted Roger. “A real charmer obviously. They printed the whole thing about the girls’ school I went to, my old name, how much of a slag I was.”

“Was?” teased Freddie, but his smile faded when Roger stared back at him without a hint of a grin. “Rog—no one’ll believe that, and it wasn’t even the headline.”

“Maybe but…what if?” Roger pressed his back into the wall. “I mean he does have the truth on his side.”

“His version anyway,” said Freddie. “I’m sure with our names a little bigger, your picture out there more, he’s getting flack for having slept with you and did this to save his manhood. I doubt anyone’ll remember it in a week or two..”

“Here’s hoping,” said Roger, his hand shaking around his cigarette.

“Exactly. And, Rog, you’ve got a pretty recognisable face,” said Freddie, “I think on some level you ought to be ready for more of your old classmates to see you in papers and try to make a little money off it.”

“You think it’ll happen again?”

Freddie shrugged. “If one of your old flings gets down on his luck and sees you’re accomplishing more in a few days than they will in their whole lives, I think yes, some jealous and petty part of them will sell this story to the papers again. Don’t think it’ll go anywhere, but you might see that pop up in a tabloid somewhere down the line again.”

Roger’s hand shook as he tucked a lock of hair behind his ear. “It’s my business.”

“It is,” said Freddie. “Good thing you’re the drummer and no one gives a shit about you in the press.”

“How comforting,” said Roger, cracking a smile.

“Hey, you switched genders and the press hasn’t caught on, I go to _one_ leather bar and the next morning I’m getting calls from Mary.”

“I’m sure if they got a snapshot of me…I don’t know, getting out of the shower, it would sell just as much as your headlines.”

“I think a nude photo of me would still sell more,” said Freddie.

“Fat chance,” scoffed Roger. “You’ve got a big cock but I’ve got the element of _surprise_.”

“I think my cock’s bigger than yours is surprising,” said Freddie.

“How do we settle this?”

“I don’t want to take it to court,” said Freddie with a fake tired sigh, “I suppose we’ll just have to pose nude for two magazines and see which sells the most copies.”

“Do you know anyone at playboy?” said Roger.

“We’re joking about it but if you keep this up the next album cover will feature us as playboy bunnies.”

“You say that like I’d be opposed,” said Roger.

“I think you might get Brian hard and ruin the fun for everyone on set,” said Freddie.

“You’re allowed to get hard too, Fred, I won’t mind,” teased Roger.

“As if you could handle it,” said Freddie through a snicker. “C’mon, let’s head back inside, I can sense Brian drafting his ‘smoking is bad for you’ speech.”

“You think you’ve got it bad,” Roger held the door open for him, “I live with him. Not allowed to smoke in my own fucking house.”

“It’s amazing how tragic your life is, truly,” said Freddie, “I don’t know _how_ you do it.”

~~~

“You really should quit smoking,” sighed Brian against Roger’s lips.

“Can we talk about this after?” huffed Roger.

“I figure,” Brian rolled his hips against Roger’s, “if I do it now you’re more likely to agree to it.”

“You’re joking,” said Roger, holding his breath, tightening his thighs around Brian’s hips.

“I’m not,” said Brian, pulling back just enough to grin down at Roger. His hand traced down Roger’s flat chest, down, down, down until his thumb circled _that spot_. Lightly, through his pants, not giving Roger any of the relief he wanted. “So what do you think?

“This isn’t fair,” said Roger, bucking up into Brian’s hand, but Brian pulled away when he did.

“What’s not fair is me living long after you’re gone because you wanted to indulge some disgusting habit that makes all your clothes smell awful.”

“I’ll think about it, I’ll think about it,” said Roger, desperately.

“Thinking’s not really good enough,” said Brian with a cheeky grin as he gave Roger just a hint of the pressure and attention he so desperately wanted.

“Fine—fine I’ll quit, I’ll never touch another fag so long as I live,” said Roger.

“Not even me?” teased Brian.

“Fuck’s sake,” groaned Roger. Brian kept on grinning as he took his time rubbing slow and heavy circles against Roger, let Roger squirm, let him sigh and bite his lip as the wetness soaked through the thin fabric of his pants. Brian had never been very dominant in bed, even after so much time he still could get a look of pure virginity on his face when Roger came on too strong. But there was one thing he was confident about, one thing he could get cocky about. His mouth.

“You swear it?” sighed Brian as he tugged Roger’s pants to the side and slid two fingers deep in him, deeper than Roger could ever get on his own. “No more?”

“No more, no more,” said Roger, his thighs trembled as he spoke, waiting for Brian to stop teasing, to stop the gentle ministrations from his fingers and get to the main event, one of them anyway.

“This might be a good idea,” said Brian, pulling his fingers out and admiring the sticky sheen left behind, “I can train you to associate not smoking with sex. Like Pavlov.”

“So if I ever smoke again I can blame it on your performance,” said Roger.

“Does that mean you’ve…got complaints?” said Brian.

“Bri—it was a joke,” said Roger, smiling up at him as he lifted his hips to tug his pants off, hopefully cueing Brian as to what he wanted.

“Was it?” said Brian with a fake laugh.

“It was,” said Roger. He sat up, just enough to put a hand on Brian’s face, to pull him in, to kiss him deep. He reached over for Brian’s right hand, guided it between his spread legs and held it there. “I’m dying for it, Bri,” he whispered against his lips. And once he felt Brian’s fingertips move, slowly and steadily sinking into him, his eyes fluttered closed and he laid back, and gripped the sheets tight enough to rip when Brian’s mouth was on him.

Brian looped his arms around Roger’s thighs, gripped his hips and worked his tongue faster and tighter around him until Roger screamed and seized up while Brian held his legs apart and wrung out every last wave of pleasure from him.

Roger panted against his pillow and clawed Brian’s arm when the blunt heat of his cock filled him. Some days it still made his stomach turn to think about it, to see where they connected and to dwell on why things weren’t different, why he just wasn’t the way he was meant to be. But some days, he could just enjoy the feeling, the wonderful fullness, and depth Brian gave him. After the first, it was easier for Roger to come again on Brian, after that it never took Brian much longer to finish, not with Roger’s body squeezing and pulsing around him.

“No smoking,” croaked Brian as he fell into the spot on the bed at Roger’s side.

“If you do that every time I try to smoke, I’ll never go near one again,” said Roger with a shiver.

Brian laughed and rolled over on him, let his thumb graze the scar on Roger’s far side, let his lips graze the scar on the side closest to him. “Does it ever hurt?”

“Not anymore so much,” said Roger.

“Looks painful still,” said Brian.

“It’ll be awhile before they fade to pink remember,” said Roger.

“I remember, but they look like they hurt,” said Brian. “You’d tell me if it hurt, right?”

“Why would I keep that from you?” laughed Roger.

“Don’t know,” said Brian, his thumb still moving across the silvery smooth, dark skin of his scar. He hummed again, with purpose this time, kissed Roger’s scar, kissed the secondary scars around his nipple, the drain scar that wrapped around his side just a bit. And said nothing, didn’t need to say much else. He clung to Roger and Roger clung right back and fell asleep with his face buried in Brian’s enormous hair.

~~~

Roger ran over the drum segment once again, for Freddie. He kept insisting that Roger’s fill wasn’t what it’d been the day before, and no matter how many times they played the recordings from the day before he wouldn’t be convinced. According to him, something was missing, and Roger had no idea how to find it.

“It’s not cymbals it’s a—a—a shugga dugga _BANG!_ Y’know?” said Freddie miming what Roger could only imagine were supposed to be drums.

“Um…” Roger stared for a moment, “okay.”

“D’you know what I’m talking about?” said Freddie, just about as lost as Roger. Roger stared back pensively and shook his head, Freddie did the same.

“Can you sing it?” offered John.

“I just did,” said Freddie. He strode to the far end of the studio and fell into the leather couch tiredly.

“Can you sing it better?” said John.

“Why don’t we record what Roger thinks he played yesterday—” began Brian.

“It is what I played yesterday,” interrupted Roger.

“—and see if the two recordings sound the same, maybe it’s the room echo or something that’s got you thrown off?” offered Brian.

“Waste of tape,” said John.

“How’s it a waste?” said Freddie.

“Because that _is_ what he played yesterday, I don’t know what you think you’re hearing—” began John.

“If you’re going to be in that pissy mood all day we may as well leave,” said Freddie.

“I’m not in a mood!” said John.

“You do have a bit of a face on,” said Roger, stirring the pot for no real reason other than boredom. Something John seemed to know by the way he glared at Roger.

“Oh—don’t start,” said Brian, rubbing his temple.

“I’m not starting anything,” said Freddie flippantly.

“Sure you’re not,” said John with a laugh that disguised real irritation, “I’m telling you he’s playing the same thing as yesterday and you start saying ‘oh he’s just on one’.”

“Because you are just on one,” said Freddie with his arms crossed tight over his chest. “Roger was the one who said you had a face on and you’re still defending him—“

“C’mon, don’t pull me into this,” said Roger, slipping his sticks back into the pouch, knowing the work was going to have to wait awhile longer.

“Pull you into this?” scoffed Freddie. “This is your fucking drumming we’re talking about, you tit.”

“If it’s going to be an argument, I’ll take my break now,” said Brian.

“Typical,” said John.

“Typical of _me?”_ said Brian. “You know participating in a disagreement does not mean cowering behind Freddie.”

“Fuck off with that,” spat Freddie.

“You’re telling me to fuck off when he’s—”

“Just go take your fucking break,” said John, gripping his bass tighter.

Roger wondered whose side he should jump in on, perhaps his own, it never did him all that much good to side with anyone in particular. But if he was honest with himself, he didn’t care enough to argue, not about this anyway. He muttered something about coffee, something about a snack, and saw himself out the recording room and down the hall to the kitchen. He veered in, straight for the coffee pot and pulled a mug off the tree to pour himself some. He’d much prefer nicotine, he’d much prefer to have a fag outside in the warm air, but, damn it, he promised Brian he wouldn’t.

“Still bickering in there?”

Roger turned, grinned at Miami sitting at the table. His briefcase open, his pen jotting something down. Roger was never really sure what Miami did for Reid. Never honestly cared to ask exactly what all his papers were, and he had a feeling Miami wouldn’t care to explain his role as Reid’s shadow.

“Aren’t we always bickering?” laughed Roger.

“Aren’t you normally one for a smoke?” Miami put his pen down.

“Apparently,” Roger sat across from him, “it’s bad for you.”

“So’s that mean you’re off the coke too?” teased Miami.

“What’s coke gonna do to my lungs?” laughed Roger. Miami smiled, picked his pen back up, and went back to poring over the paperwork in front of him. It was endearing, in a way, that he chose to do office work at the studio. He had a little more life in him than Reid. Rather than disturb whatever it was he was working on, Roger eased the newspaper out from under his elbow. Miami hardly noticed. He’d read the front page at home earlier that morning, didn’t bother glancing it over a second time, moved straight on to the second, the third, and stopped at the fourth.

Stopped when a photo of him from secondary school stared back at him. A class photo with his old name printed underneath, both followed by a story. One he could only glance at and, though the source was anonymous, Roger remembered the boy in it. The story he told was about the few nights Roger spent with him, the assertion that Roger’s current name, his current look was all a facade to try and make it in the music industry.

“Er—Jim, do you mind—do you mind if I take a sheet of this out—” began Roger.

“Already saw it,” he replied without looking up.

“Oh,” Roger swallowed, “odd isn’t it?”

“I suppose that’s a good word for it,” he laughed uncomfortably and spun his pen in his fingers, “I won’t ask if it’s true.”

“I didn’t really get on with some of the boys in my school back home,” said Roger awkwardly. “This must be some sort of…final humiliation from them I suppose,” said Roger with a shrug. Not lying, but carefully tiptoeing around the truth.

“Strange rumour to spread,” said Miami. “D’you know where they got that photo?”

“Must’ve—must’ve edited it,” said Roger. His eyes scanned the photo of him. Not all too much had changed, his hair was longer then. His clothes weren’t tight trousers then, but a tight skirt instead, a brightly coloured top, something to get the attention he craved back then, craved with no real understanding as to why. “Must just be edited.”

“Okay,” said Miami, not buying the version of the truth Roger was selling, but not pressing him into a confession either.

“Has everyone seen this you think?” said Roger, nervously wringing his hands.

“I think so,” said Miami with an apologetic look, as if it were his job to keep newspapers out of the staff’s hands.

“And I thought Freddie was bad with the press,” said Roger with a nervous laugh. Miami joined him with an equal amount of uncertain tension.

“Who knows,” he shrugged, “might be the last we hear of all this.”

“Yeah,” said Roger noncommittally. He knew it wouldn’t be the last. He knew more pictures existed of him looking all wrong, he knew there was years and years of yearbooks with his old name printed in them, directories with the same, photos of him with the nuns in his girls’ school, photos of him with his friends in their hemmed up uniforms. Photos he couldn’t get away from, couldn’t confiscate from everyone he knew.

His coffee burned his throat as he downed half of it in one gulp. He left the rest with Miami and hurried back to the studio. And for once, he genuinely hoped they were all fighting. Hoped he could creep back in, unseen, and sit behind his drums. Forget the shitstorm outside and focus on the drumming.

“Where’d you get off to?” said John.

Roger let the door shut behind him. “Is everyone in better spirits?”

“We’ve all kissed and made up,” said Freddie through a grin. Brian rolled his eyes but grinned all the same.

“I—just had coffee, we ready for the next take?” said Roger.

“Are you?” laughed Freddie. “You look ill.”

“Do I?” said Roger with a fake laugh.

“All the colours gone from your face,” said Brian with a cocked head.

“And considering that tan you’ve got, it’s no easy feat,” added Freddie.

“Can’t imagine why. I feel fine,” said Roger, convincing no one. Their eyes all followed him as he hopped up on the drum risers and sat behind the kit. “C’mon--let’s get a little blood pumping, my colour will come back.”

“Alright,” said Freddie warily.

“If you want to stop, tell us,” said John.

“You’re all so dramatic, go on,” he started off the count and watched Brian scramble for his guitar with a grin. And he played. With no soul, no life, no enthusiasm, just rote time keeping and making sure no one strayed from the count.

He wondered if anyone would ever get the courage to ask him about the rumours outright. If it would become something he constantly denied in interviews. Or if he could even get to that point at all. There was always the chance that one or two interviews in he’d be asked to prove it in some way, to explain the undoctored photos from his youth. And when he came up empty on both counts, unable to defend himself in either arena, the audience would fill in the rest. That carefully constructed, carefully moderated public image would fall apart and the world would be privy to sides of him he kept so close to the chest, sides of him he’d hid for so long.

“Okay, okay,” said Freddie, waving his hands, “you look like you’re about to be sick,” he said up to Roger. “You’re playing like it too. Shall we take a break—the day off even?”

“I’m fine,” said Roger, suddenly aware that he hadn’t remembered what song they were playing.

“I’d hate to see you ill if _this_ is fine,” said John.

Brian hopped up on the riser, put a hand on Roger’s forehead. “You don’t feel hot but—”

“Because I’m not ill!” said Roger.

“You’re so clammy though,” said Brian.

“I’m not clammy—I’m _sweaty!_ I’m _drumming!”_ spat Roger.

“Maybe you picked up a bug when you went in for the post-op check-in last week?” offered Brian.

“Can we focus on the fucking music,” grumbled Roger.

“How long is it until you’re out of the woods for one of those post operative infections?” said John.

“What? It’s no more than two weeks or something, we’re getting round to six months here Deaks,” said Freddie with a scoff.

“Fuck’s sake— _the album!”_ said Roger.

“Let’s all take a break,” said Brian.

“No—come on, let’s just play, let’s play the fucking music!” said Roger, desperate, bursting at the seams for something to get his mind off everything. Though evidently, drumming didn’t exactly do the job.

“What’s with you?” said Freddie, staring intently at him.

Roger looked from Freddie, up to the booth where the engineer looked worn out from the bickering, his eyes on the dials, mindlessly tuning their arguments. “Can we have a moment?” said Roger into the microphone poised for his snare drum.

Roger held his breath, waiting for him to get up and leave, and once he had, he exhaled heavily. He rubbed his eyes, his face, shook his hands out and ignored Brian’s muttering of ‘what’s wrong’, and Freddie’s additions of ‘are you okay’.

“Everything’s fine,” said Roger, “but someone sent a photo of me from Truro to the papers, told them all about…about how we were together and what I was back then and…”

“It’s some shitty tabloid,” said Brian, “and it was weeks ago.”

“Actually, it’s The Sun, and it’s today,” said Roger through a clenched jaw.

“What—is it the same guy as before?” said Freddie, one hand resting on the outer rim of his rack tom.

“No, different one, probably got the ideas from each other though,” said Roger. He set his sticks down and cracked the aching joints in his fingers, ignoring the way they all three stared at him with faces full of pity.

“Can Reid do something—or Miami or—someone,” said John.

“What’s there to be done,” Roger shrugged. “Those photos are real, those—those people knew me as a different person, they’re not lying, I can’t sue them. Just have to let it run it’s course.”

“That’s not fucking fair,” said Freddie. “This is your business, it’s private, they shouldn’t be allowed to start sending off photos to every news outlet like it’s nothing.”

“Maybe,” Roger picked up his sticks again, “but they have so…let’s just get on with the recording, I’ll focus this time around, swear it.”

“If that’s what you want,” said Freddie with a tight jaw and a furrowed brow.

“It is,” said Roger with a forced laugh.

Drumming had always had a meditative quality to it for Roger. So much of his focus was on keeping time, so much of the rhythm faltered if he wasn’t present in the moment. With so many years experience he was able to phone it in if he needed to, to let his muscles play the music for him. But it was noticeable and playing well forced him out of his own head and into the drums. An all encompassing distraction. Even if just for awhile, even if just for a few takes of a few songs before they all collectively decided there was no life in them anymore and they ought to call it a day.

Roger ignored the lingering glances of pity Freddie and John offered him as they said they goodbyes in the carpark of the studio. Brian stuffed his guitar in the backseat and hopped up front. Roger was peeling out of the lot before Brian’s door slammed shut.

“We could call Reid,” he offered as Roger hurled the car out onto the main road.

“It won’t do anything,” said Roger with a heavy sigh.

“You don’t know that,” said Brian, putting his hand over Roger’s on the gear shift.

“He can’t pay off the entirety of my neighbourhood,” said Roger, focusing on the way Brian’s thumb stroked the back of his hand.

“No harm in asking,” said Brian. “In all likelihood it’ll blow over.” Roger scoffed. “I mean it.”

“Brian this is exactly the sort of gossip that lingers,” said Roger tiredly. “This is the sort of off the wall shit people are looking for.”

“Then we can camp at home,” said Brian, his fingertips pressing against Roger’s knuckles gently.

“You think it’ll come to that?”

“No,” laughed Brian, “I’m just letting you know, worst case scenario is sunbathing a little longer than anticipated.”

It was a comforting thought. To picture the two of them holed up in their house, lounging out in the garden and taking a break from the album while they did it. But Roger knew that wasn’t the worst case scenario, and he knew Brian knew that too.

If everyone knew, a lot would start to change. The way he was treated for starters, but the way he was paid as well, the way they were all paid, the way they were advertised maybe. If Roger’s reality hurt sales, the label would let them sink, and if the publicity around it drummed up a bit more excitement for sales, Roger could see himself being shoved into a cramped room with an interviewer who had only personal questions lined up and waiting for him. Either way he’d never outrun the story.

“I love you,” said Brian, breaking Roger from his hellish day dreams.

Roger blinked, grinned at him, and sighed, “I love you too.”

~~~

Roger rolled his hips down onto Brian, ground down against him and watched his eyes roll back. There was normally a confidence and sense of accomplishment when he made Brian groan like that. But not in that moment, not with his mind so focused on other things. Each move on Brian was devoid of need, he didn’t care to finish himself off anymore, his anxiety preventing any real shocks of pleasure anyway. He planted a hand on Brian’s chest and moved fast enough for Brian to start whining, to start warning Roger, to grip his thigh and leave scratch marks in his skin when he finally came.

Roger caught his breath and climbed off, ignoring the words of praise Brian offered him.

“Sorry I came inside,” huffed Brian under his breath as he rolled over, draped a leg across Roger’s hips and pressed a kiss to his jaw.

“It’s fine,” said Roger quickly, not wanting to think about all that, all that hassle of worry when Brian didn’t pull out. But it wouldn’t leave his mind, would only add to his other lingering anxieties.

“You’re turn,” hummed Brian, his hand trailing down Roger’s body, his fingers eagerly prodding between his legs.

“No, no thanks,” said Roger, shifting his hips away from Brian’s touch.

“No thanks?” laughed Brian, sitting up enough to look down at Roger. “What’s that about?”

“I’m not in the mood anymore,” said Roger with a halfhearted shrug, his eyes fixed on the ceiling to avoid Brian’s piercing gaze.

“Something wrong?” said Brian, his hand moving back up Roger, lingering just under his ribs.

Roger shook his head. “Nothing, just not…not in the mood anymore.”

“Did I do something—did I say—” began Brian, panicky as ever.

“No,” said Roger turning to him, meeting his eyes to make a point of his sincerity. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

Brian eyed him for a moment, a mixture of skepticism and worry on his face before he sank back down and rested his head on Roger’s shoulder. Roger wrapped an arm around him and kissed his curls blindly, Brian kept a hand on his chest, just under his scars but occasionally inching up to run his fingertips over the smooth silver skin there. A habit he’d picked up as soon as the scars weren’t painful to the touch. A habit Roger didn’t fully understand, didn’t really question until then. Until that moment.

“Bri, what do you see me as?” said Roger, one hand reaching to cover Brian’s, just over his scar.

“As… _you_ ,” said Brian with a quiet laugh. “Why, what’m I supposed to see you as?”

“Dunno,” said Roger. “A man, I guess.”

“That’s part of you,” said Brian. “Of course I see you that way.”

Roger felt the way Brian’s fingertips moved almost automatically against his scar. He sucked his teeth and murmured, “if you say so.”

“Fuck’s that mean?” Brian sat up and stared down at Roger with a furrowed brow and tight jaw. “I do fucking say so, you can’t tell me how I fucking see you.”

“I’m not trying to,” said Roger.

“I’m sorry if you’re not feeling well, but don’t go—don’t project those feelings on me,” said Brian. “I have never cared, I will never care. Your body’s never going to change my view of you so—so—so don’t say shit like that.”

Roger wanted to deny the accusation some more, start an argument about it maybe. But where would that end? With Brian upset and Roger still full to bursting with panic about the papers, about the next day’s delivery, about himself, about what the world would think of it. It did him no good to pick a fight by pretending Brian was just as unsure in how he felt about his body as Roger was.

“You’re right,” Roger held his hands up in innocent surrender, “I’m thinking too much.”

“About what?” said Brian, his anger ebbing away.

“About it all,” said Roger, “the whole lot.”

“Well…don’t,” said Brian.

“Hadn’t thought of that,” scoffed Roger, “you ought to be a life coach.”

“I mean it,” said Brian with a grin. He laid down beside him. “Fuck the rest. You’ve got who you need. If things go south, we’ll all still be here. Especially me.”

“Do you mean that?” said Roger, turning to look at him. Brian turned back and nodded. “It doesn’t bother you to see photos of me like that, or to see my old name printed over and over again—to hear all the things I did with those boys? It doesn’t—it doesn’t change anything or upset you or anything like that?”

“Sure, it upsets me,” said Brian. “It’s not fair that shit like that’s getting printed. I don’t like seeing you deal with this, but I don’t mind it. It’s not like I didn’t know, it’s not like your mother hasn’t shown me every photo she’s ever taken of you, it’s not like I haven’t seen the name on your old passport, it doesn’t shock me.”

“Shocks me,” said Roger with a sad smile.

“I’m sorry,” Brian rolled onto his side, ran a hand across Roger’s waist. “I’m sorry it’s out there, but don’t worry about what I’m thinking.”

Roger stared at him, Brian stared back, unblinking in his effort to communicate his sincerity. “I shouldn’t’ve said anything,” said Roger, nestling in closer to the warmth of Brian’s body, to the comfort it brought him, “I didn’t mean to accuse you or anything like that.”

“I think you’ve earned a few outbursts,” said Brian. Roger could practically feel him grinning in his hair. “It’ll pass, it’ll all pass.”

“And if it doesn’t?” said Roger, holding his breath.

“It will,” said Brian, “I know it will.”

But he didn’t know, he couldn’t know. Roger could see it all clearly before him. Could remember back to when he told his friends his family. Clare had been so welcoming, but the rest of the world was out for him. Ogling him like he was a creature rather than a person. Attacking and mocking and belittling him to point where even Clare was almost unable to provide any sort of comfort. Good came of it, his new name and identity came of it. But he, without hesitation, would label that time the worst in his life. And it ended when he left it behind, when he moved to London. How could he leave behind the public, move away from the press? He’d have to ditch drumming, that was a certainty. Would Brian have to as well?

Would his life effect Brian, the band, to such a point where even in his absence it was an issue? Would he inadvertently back Brian into a corner and make him choose between his wildest dreams and Roger. Which would he pick. He knew on some level, Brian would pick him over anything, and Roger would pick Brian. But on another level, maybe it would wear thin for him. Maybe the constant barrage of intrusive questions and barriers towards a normal life would finally eat him up if the ultimatum reared it’s head.

But he could worry about that in the morning. For right then he shifted closer to Brian, listened to his heartbeat and breathed in time with it until he fell asleep.

~~~

He got seven days, seven blissful days of convincing himself it was over, convincing himself he’d beaten the story, only to wake up on the seventh morning and catch his photo on the cover of the paper. Two photos technically. One of their promo shots for the band, and a shot of Roger with one of his boyfriends, posing for his boyfriend’s mother before they went off somewhere Roger couldn’t remember, all he knew was he was in some dress with some ridiculous amount of ill-applied makeup and curls in his hair.

Though he couldn’t recall the occasion, the emotion in him then was crystal clear in his mind. He could clearly see his old self staring in the mirror, trying to stomach the dress, the name, the curls, the eyeshadow. Telling himself he looked nice, telling himself he’d have fun, telling himself everyone felt this way, that it was a part of womanhood to wish so desperately to escape it. It was such a heavy night for him, one full of alcohol and blind sex to forget for just a moment what his body meant to everyone else. A type of night that he was only glad to remember to remind himself that, if nothing else, he didn’t feel like _that_ anymore. The kind of night he didn’t expect to have detailed in the paper, the kind of night he didn’t expect to be shared with the public.

The morning had started with a call from Clare, warning him of what he might see, and reminding him, reassuring him that it would pass, that no one would linger on this one too long. But how could they not. It was salacious, it was personal, it was odd, and it was on the front page. Each and every gory detail in there in print along with his old name over and over and over again. Clare promised she wouldn’t let their mother call and agitate him over it. Brian offered to cancel their time recording later that day but Roger wouldn’t have any of it. The one thing that was a constant, that was entirely unaffected by who he was, was his drumming.

But sat there, listless behind the kit, he wondered if maybe just about every facet of his life could be destroyed from the inside out.

“Coffee?” said John awkwardly swaying with his bass.

Roger shook his head. “I’m fine.”

“We can take a break if you like,” said Freddie over the loudspeaker. “It’s really no issue.”

No one had said it outright, no one had mentioned what they saw on their front walks that morning, but they were all treating Roger like he might shatter. And on any other day he might’ve resented it. But delicate words and gestures were exactly what he needed to avoid quitting the whole thing. To avoid storming out and never coming back until any sliver of notoriety he had was gone.

“I don’t need a break,” sighed Roger. He cracked his knuckles and twirled his stick around one knuckle. “I’m good, roll the tape.”

“We’re doing one more take like this and then taking a break,” said Freddie. “It’s a waste of tape at this point, honestly.”

“It’s on beat,” said John. “Just a little flat.”

“I know what it sounds like,” snapped Roger. It wasn’t fair to snap at John but he knew he didn’t have to apologise. He knew John understood it and didn’t mind it so much.

His next take was just as lifeless and slow as the ones before it. Dragging behind the beat in less of a bluesy way and more of a sluggish way. Less like he was grooving in the pocket effortlessly, and more like he didn’t have the energy to play to tempo. Ten odd measures from the end, he stopped, let his bass drum and snare peter out with a few ghost hits when he saw Reid’s face on the other side of the glass.

“I,” began Roger, unsure where the thought was going, “I think the snare’s not tuned up right.” His words went unheard as far as he could tell. Reid and Freddie got locked in conversation and made no effort to acknowledge Roger’d spoken. Aside from their engineer promising to send in a drum tech to tune Roger’s kit up just before Reid kicked him out.

“What d’you think they’re talking about in there?” said John.

“Me,” said Roger with a sad sigh.

“No, I can’t see Reid caring all too much about some headlines,” said John.

“I wouldn’t be so sure,” said Roger, his eyes glued to the way Reid’s mouth moved with words he couldn’t make out, the way his expression shifted so subtly. Almost always neutral but occasionally giving off glimmers and glimpses of anger maybe, frustration, something Roger wasn’t excited to be on the receiving end of.

“What I bet it is, is the label’s end date for this getting tighter,” said John, sucking his teeth. Roger’s surgery had pushed the released date back a bit and the label was keen on pushing it up, shortening it by weeks and weeks. Reid was a constant reminder that if they took too long their rising star would die out quick.

“How much tighter can it get before our album’s got four songs on it,” said Roger, exhaustion starting to creep into his joints.

He watched Reid as he spoke with Freddie and Brian, watched the way he kept his arms crossed tight, watched the way he kept glancing at him through the glass, his expression entirely unreadable. Reid’s eyes locked on him while Freddie rambled, staring down deep inside him until finally he leant forward and pressed the button for the overhead speaker.

“Roger can you get in here?” said Reid.

“Er, yeah,” said Roger, dipping down towards his hihat mic. It’d been a long while since he thought back to the afternoon he told his neighbourhood, the afternoon he’d shown up with shorter hair and a flatter chest and a shiny new name. And it’d been a long time since he’d felt the sort of dread he felt when he went home for supper that night and had to face his father. But this was shockingly similar. Same sweaty palms, same shallow breath, same worry that his life as he knew it was over. That he’d be thrown out to the dogs and drag everyone else down with him.

He heard John hurry to set his bass down, hurry to follow behind him as he swung the recording room door open. Roger uttered a nervous hello as he strode into the booth like nothing happened. His standard response to trouble, pretending nothing was wrong. But in the cramped, smoky booth with the whole band and Reid, he could practically feel his smile cracking under the pressure.

“We pushing the deadline up again?” said John with a tired sigh.

“Fuck off with that,” said Reid. He turned his attention to Roger, “appendectomy eh?”

“I—I didn’t think it was important—“ began Roger.

“Can we have the room,” said Reid sharply. They all three lingered until Roger shrugged it off, made some sort of gesture to assure them he’d be fine. Reid was imposing and blunt and often totally unfeeling. But he was also short. And he could yell and scream at Roger and threaten to have him thrown out of the band, but Roger could shove him over. “So,” said Reid as the door shut, “didn’t think it was important?”

“It’s not,” said Roger. “Gender’s got fuck all to do with drumming, it’s not your business.”

“You’re not that naive,” said Reid. “When I met you, all of you, I told you about myself. I didn’t do that to make sure none of you were bothered by it, I did it because I knew you’d all find out sooner or later. These things don’t stay hidden in this business. Your personal life becomes entertainment.”

Roger grit his teeth. “I kept a lid on it for years—”

“You know there’s no way to hide this,” said Reid. “And you should’ve warned me, I’m your manager.”

“Warned you for what?” spat Roger. “You just said you can’t hide it, so what’s the point—”

“The point is,” said Reid, “the less that surprises me the better. The point is, I need to be ahead of the story. I can put out fires but it’s much more efficient when I know they’re coming.”

“Well, I guess I’m sorry for that,” said Roger with a shrug, “but I didn’t have to tell you.”

Reid glared at him. Well, not so much a glare, just his neutral face that always felt like anger or some sort of disappointment. He held it for a moment or two and pressed his lips together in a thin line. “What’s the strategy from here?”

“How’s that?” said Roger.

“If we have to make a statement, what’ll it be?” said Reid. He reached for his cigarettes and lit one.

“I, I don’t know,” said Roger, he hadn’t thought about it. Hadn’t ever considered talking to the press about it, either to confirm or deny. “I don’t know.”

“Well think,” said Reid. “You four’ve got that interview with that station in a few days for this unfinished album. What’ll you do if it comes up then?”

“I don’t have to answer—“ began Roger.

“But you do have to promote the fucking album,” spat Reid. “You can’t afford to throw a fit on television or get into a fight with an interviewer over your privacy or your dignity, your career is at stake. I know you four feel like real hot shots after your last album but this business is unforgiving. If this album sinks, you’ll go with it.” Roger nodded ever so slightly, trying to communicate he understood the severity of it all without adding anything else, without opening the floor for a rebuttal. “Any other career-ending news you’ve been hiding?”

“No,” said Roger tiredly, “oh—er—well—I, I don’t know if it counts but Brian and I—“

“I know,” said Reid rolling his eyes.

“Oh,” said Roger cocking his head.

“Sorry but your story about how he was ‘living with you’ while he searched for the perfect house sort of fell apart after the third month,” said Reid. He breathed out a cloud of smoke and rummaged through his pockets for his wallet, his keys, making sure he had it all. “Well, that’s all I had to say—“ began Reid, taking a step towards the door.

“Is this bad?” interrupted Roger.

“It’s not good,” said Reid. His eyes lingered on Roger’s for a moment. Something was in them. Empathy maybe? Some kind of commiseration. Then he broke away, took his leave, and left the four of them to record in the last few hours they had the studio.

~~~

Roger couldn’t find an appetite in himself. Couldn’t be bothered to care about eating at the moment. He shifted the food around on his plate, no intention of spearing any of it with his fork, and hoped Brian wouldn’t notice. And if he did he hoped he’d have the decency not to mention it.

“Why don’t we go out to dinner,” said Brian. Normally he sat across from Roger, but tonight he sat at his side, bumping his shoulder against Roger’s every once in a while to snap him out of his own daydreaming. “Not tonight obviously, but this weekend or—sometime soon. I think we could use a fun night out don’t you?”

“I do,” said Roger quietly, “but I, I don’t know if I can handle all the cameras right now. It’s one thing when they just want to see us, it’s another when they’re…looking for signs of—of—I can’t imagine I’d be able to eat with all of that.”

“Then I’ll cook,” said Brian.

Roger grinned just a bit. Brian wasn’t much of a cook but he was leagues better than Roger and at very least had the patience to follow a recipe. “Will you cook me a steak?”

Brian sighed, wanting to fight it but knowing it wasn’t the time, and Roger grinned, thinking the exact same thing. “This once, I’ll cook you a steak.”

“How’ll we make another night in feel like a night out?” said Roger.

“I’ll come up with something,” said Brian confidently. Roger rolled his eyes but underneath it all was eager to see what he’d come up with. What sort of distraction and treat he’d be able to concoct and if it would actually get Roger’s mind off the headlines. He didn’t have much faith that anything could, but he still hoped there was something that could. “You look anxious.”

“Do I?” said Roger, quickly shaking off the furrowed brow and tight jaw, “don’t mean to.”

“The interview tomorrow’ll be fine,” said Brian with a soothing gentleness in his voice, one that Roger heard more often than not these days. “Freddie’s been in the press like this before, they’ve usually got more tact than to bring it up.”

“Let’s not, let’s not talk about it,” said Roger, dropping his fork, no longer even pretending to eat.

“Okay,” said Brian with a subtle shift in his seat. “Well, how about I get your mind off it?”

“My mind off it?” said Roger, looking up at him, letting Brian’s hand creep up his thigh. He smiled up at him, let his eyes slip closed as Brian kissed him and tried, very hard to focus. To not let his mind drift and panic about the following day, to stay in the moment to enjoy the moment. To enjoy the way Brian’s hand felt snaking up his shirt, the way his fingertips pressed hard into his ribs, the way his touch moved lower and lower, easing between his legs with familiarity.

Almost on reflex, Roger brought a leg up, forced Brian’s hand away and pulled back with a deep breath in.

“You alright—”

“Don’t touch—don’t it’s too...” began Roger, unsure how the thought might finish but clear with his intentions. He meant it but didn’t have the energy to really explain why, to apologise, to stroke Brian’s ego that had admittedly taken a beating in the weeks following the news stories.

“It’s too what?” said Brian, full of goodnatured concern that made Roger’s stomach turn. He just shook his head, unable, or at least unwilling to explain further. “Rog, you can’t let these stories get so deep in your head. Your body’s just a body, you don’t have to be—“

“I know,” snapped Roger. He took a deep breath in, rested his head in his hand, “I’m sorry, I’m not trying to be difficult.”

“You’re not being difficult,” laughed Brian, his hand finding Roger’s easily. “Not difficult in the slightest.” said Brian, though the weariness showed through in his voice. He put an arm across Roger’s shoulders and squeezed. “After the interview, you’ll feel a lot better about all this, I’m sure of it.” Brian pulled him in closer, kissed his temple.

“I don’t know,” said Roger. “What if it just gets worse?”

“It won’t,” said Brian with a quiet laugh. “Trust me, it won’t.”

“It could,” said Roger under his breath. Brian only sighed in response. Sighed and reached his other arm around Roger’s middle, held him a little tighter.

~~~

“Would you say you four are, sort of, cranking the music out in the studio or is it more of a slower process?” said the interviewer. Freddie took most of the questions, Brian took the remainder, though a few were lobbed to John and Roger. Normally Roger would be inserting himself, talking fast enough to take questions aimed at Freddie or Brian, just for the chance to speak, to not be ignored in favour of the flashier instruments of the group. But sitting under the lights, his hands practically leaving damp spots on the knees of his trousers, he couldn’t say he minded the silence.

The camera to his left, a secondary camera, was pointed right at him, and though it was mostly a radio programme, though he knew the video of the interview may never air, he didn’t like the way the camera breathed down his neck. Despite the whole interview taking place in Freddie’s townhome, it all felt heavy and intimidating, like an interrogation more than a promotion for their album. Such a waste in his mind. Such a waste that this scandal should surround something like this, something he normally could have a great deal of fun with.

“I would say,” Freddie rolled his wrist, and looked to Brian, “I think it comes in waves, you know? Big bursts of creative, creative er, what’s the word—productivity, and then, you know,” he broke out into a laugh, “a whole lot of nothing for a week or so.”

Roger laughed awkwardly with the interviewer, with John and Brian, at that. He knew his laugh sounded too jarring when Brian looked over to him with a face of confusion an concern. Roger just smiled back and shifted his hands from his knees to the arms of the chair he’d sunk into. Seeing as it was Freddie’s he didn’t mind or feel in any way guilty about how he pulled at the loose thread in the stitching.

Brian fielded questions about the sound of the new album, John pitched in for a few of the songs, some of the technical aspects and all that. Roger did get asked something about a statement an old jazz drummer had made about rock drumming. Easy enough to fake his way through that answer, all smiles the whole time.

“Has success started going to your heads?” said the interviewer with a grin.

“Oh—it went to my head before we had it,” said Freddie with a laugh. “Only joking,” he added dramatically.

“I don’t think it has,” said Brian through a grin, “it all still feels the same only now we’re not er, not starving so,” he laughed.

“Well,” said Roger, still fiddling with the loose thread, “the one way it’s really changed is the audience reception. Putting out a great album is one thing, making money off it’s another, but hearing these crowds we sort of never imagined we’d get sing our music back is, y’know it’s—”

“Surreal,” said Brian.

“I’m sure it is,” said the interviewer, “though I suppose the downside to all this, well—not overnight success, but—overnight fame I suppose, is these headlines.”

“Oh those,” said Freddie. “We don’t—we don’t pay much attention,” he said as flippant as possible, trying to move the conversation along.

“These repeated stories about you, Roger, things like that must get under the skin,” the interviewer said, “has that effected anything with the album, good or bad?”

“Oh er,” Roger shifted up in his seat and found each nerve ending tingling with a sort of panic he hadn’t felt in ages as the main camera shifted to focus on him, “I er—yeah, suppose I didn’t expect getting stories like that but, I suppose these people’s er, imaginations getting attention is, yeah, is part of the success.” Roger took in a sharp breath and hoped it didn’t sound as panicked as it was.

“And these photos?” asked the interviewer.

“What’s this got to do with the album—” began John.

“Amazing how they make things like that,” said Roger with a grin. “Don’t know how they did it but, looks real doesn’t it?”

“So you’re saying these photo’s’re all fake?” said the interviewer with a laugh.

“They’re real photos but that’s, that’s not me in them,” said Roger, not necessarily a lie, not a lie he could get dragged up on at least.

“Certainly looks like you, in all the photos, all the photocopies of yearbooks,” said the interviewer.

“I’m sorry, was there a question?” asked Freddie with a scoff.

“Is that your official stance here? That this is fake?” said the interviewer with a quite benign, even friendly expression that didn’t match the bite in his tone.

“Of…of course, it’s all fake,” said Roger. Trembling around his words. “But—I’m flattered these people care enough to spread rumours, though. Shows how far we’ve all come in a way.”

“Hm,” the interviewer eyed him up and down and added, “and you’ll hopefully be going even farther with this album.” They were all asked to look into the camera one last time and give a goodbye to the audience and the release date for the album. They each did with big grins and once the cameras shut off the crew all thanked them and hurried out with their equipment.

~~~

“That could’ve gone much worse,” said Brian, his first words of the whole commute home.

Roger ignored him and hurried for the kitchen, for his Southern Comfort. His hands shook as he poured himself a glass, and despite himself his eyes welled up. Brian, somewhere behind him, got a glass of his own, poured himself some of the whiskey and rested against the countertops with Roger, looked at him with eyes full of pity and sadness.

“It could’ve been worse,” Brian repeated.

“Is this our life now?” Roger’s voice already hoarse with the tears threatening to stain his cheeks. “I mean really, is this what we can look forward to? Lying to reporters about who I am to promote an album?” He reached up to wiped his cheek with the back of his sleeve. “It’s not like they believe it’s fake—it’s not like the next interviewer isn’t gonna ask the same shit, it’s not like this’ll ever be gone.”

“Rog, I promise, it won’t always be this—this at the center of attention,” Brian stepped closer, put a hand on his shoulder. “You’ll deny it for awhile longer, and the interest in the story, whether they believe you or not, will fade.”

“Why,” spat Roger. “Why the fuck would it—everyone who’s already given their story has thousands more to tell, more photos, more proof that _I’m_ the one lying, not them.” He down the whiskey he’d poured and hissed when it burned his throat. “There’s money to be made on this, it’s—it’s, people think it’s weird and perverse and they’re not going to stop fucking bothering me about it until they know.”

“That’s not true,” said Brian, far more calm than Roger, using that voice, that gentle and soft voice he used whenever Roger got upset about these things, a voice Roger heard more often than not these days. “They printed the story of us living together, that’s ‘perverse’ that’s ‘weird’. Do you see reporters breaking down our door to see our sleeping arrangements?”

“It’s different,” said Roger. He turned to pour himself more whiskey but Brian eased the bottle out of his hand and set it down on the far end of the counter.

“It’s different, but it’s not that different,” said Brian. “And it will pass, I promise you that.”

“Are you,” he sniffed, stomach turning just a bit, “are you saying that for my sake or your own?”

“What?” said Brian with a confused grin.

“I mean, are you telling me this’ll pass because you need it to?” said Roger with a tight jaw.

“What’re you—what’re you asking me, Rog?” Brian’s grin faded.

“I’m asking,” his voice cracked with the tears, “if you’ll leave me if this doesn’t stop, or if it gets worse or—if things don’t go back to normal.”

“Rog—” began Brian.

“Don’t answer quick,” interrupted Roger. “This isn’t an easy way to live, I know it’s not, and really think here, Brian. I mean really think about it. What if this story gets worse and worse, what if we can never leave our fucking house again because of me? Be honest with us both, would you really stick around for a life like that—because I know, if I could ditch all this, leave all the shit my body comes with, I would.” He hiccuped. “If I could just walk away from this shit I would do it—most people would do it, you’re not evil for being the majority—”

“Roger,” said Brian with a bit of bite as Roger’s stray tears became more of a steady stream. “I’m not leaving you. If this is your roundabout way of leaving me then so be it but—”

“It’s not,” croaked Roger, “it’s not, I love you—”

“Okay, okay,” said Brian, hushing his panicked words and reaching up to wipe the tears from his cheeks. “I love you too, and some bad press won’t change that.”

“Doesn’t this shit upset you, isn’t this—aren’t you at the end of your tether?” said Roger.

“Of course it upsets me,” said Brian. “I fucking hate this, I can hardly fucking stand this shit anymore. I hate that every morning I’m worried someone’s printed the most private details of your life and given it a catchy headline. I hate this, I hate watching you go through it, but that doesn’t mean I’ll abandon you for it. This will pass, this will all pass and—”

“But if it doesn’t stop—”

“It will stop,” said Brian with a laugh. “I know you…you’ve dealt with this longer than I have. But this is not the same as when you were in school. It’s not. You made a few headlines, but you’re not a royal, you’re not an MP, you’re not an actor, you’re not even the lead singer,” he added with grin, “you’re the drummer, and someone sold a few photos of you in a dress for a school dance and your old uniform. This is not a story that’ll keep selling papers.”

“Maybe,” said Roger, blinking away the tears caught on his lashes. “But if it does—”

“If it does, if by some _miracle_ , this story is more interesting to the public of Britain than a slutty duchess or a nuclear bomb, then we’ll figure it out.” Brian ran a hand through his hair, played with it the way Roger liked. “If it’s too much for the band, we’ll disband, tank the Queen name and make our music under some other title, a new label even. If that doesn’t throw them off the scent, we can do other things, Rog. I can finally finish my doctorate, you can do…whatever you’re supposed to do with a biology degree. We can sort something out. We can move away, go into hiding together,” he grinned down at Roger when he noticed the beginnings of a smile on Roger’s face.

“I couldn’t do that,” said Roger timidly. “To you—to Freddie, to John, to any of us. I’m not sinking anyone’s dreams because I’m scared of the press.”

“But you can, if you need to, if we need to,” said Brian. “The money, the lifestyle, this house, it’s all nice. But I can go back to living in a mouldy old flat with broken heating if it’s still with you.”

Roger stared up at him through his tear-blurred vision, reached a hand out and clutched the buttons of his shirt. “Do you mean that? Will you mean it later on if things get worse? Honestly. Is it worth it to have me when my body’s different in all the wrong places, and the whole world knows, and the whole world is staring?”

“Roger,” Brian brushed his hair back for him, “I love you, not who you think you’re meant to be. I—I can’t say it enough. I,” Brian sighed, stared at Roger with intent, and took a sharp breath in. “I was saving this for a night where we could leave the house, or at least a more romantic setting, but you may as well hear it now.”

“Hear what?” croaked Roger.

“Look, I—I didn’t get a ring yet or anything—”

“A ring?” said Roger, perking up.

“—but I—well, I want to be your husband, and I want you to be mine,” Brian reached for Roger’s hand still gripping his shirt, and let his fingertips run over Roger’s. “I know it’s not legal, I know it’s not official, but it’ll be real, a real marriage, even if we’re the only ones who think so. I love all of you, even the parts you hate and I want you to know I’m,” he took a shaky breath in, “I’m in this for the long haul, and I really can’t prove it much more than this. I hope it’s enough.”

“You’re serious,” said Roger, not a question just his own thoughts rushing out in disbelief.

“What a horrible joke that would be,” laughed Brian, anxiety still clear on his face.

“You’re,” Roger cleared his throat, “supposed to get on one knee, I think.”

“I don’t have a ring,” said Brian, “what’ll I be presenting you?”

“Just do it, do it proper,” said Roger.

“You and your dramatics,” sighed Brian as he sank down onto one knee and reached up for Roger’s hand. “Roger—”

“Yes,” said Roger, too quick.

“You can’t make me kneel then not let me finish—”

“Yes, I can, and yes, I’ll marry you,” said Roger. He tugged Brian’s hand urged him back up to his feet, and before Brian could complain about him being high maintenance, he pulled him down into a kiss, wrapped his arms around his neck and relished in the way Brian’s hands ran up and down his back.

More stories would be printed, more embarrassing details Roger wanted to bury deep in his memory would be shared with the public, with their audience, with Brian. More photos would appear, each one harder to explain than the last. And if their band kept up with the traction, there wasn’t a doubt in his mind that more stories would follow and crop up every so often. But the way Brian kissed him, kissed down his body and worshipped the parts of him he always hid, calmed him, soothed him, made him more aware than ever that he had Brian. No matter what, no matter the headlines or the press or the tumult with their label over it all, he had Brian, and Brian wanted him. All of him.


End file.
